SnowBlast 2014

11 girls. 6th graders. A cabin full of wild, squealing, giggling, whirlwinds. The one thing I used to swear as a middle schooler I would never lead.

But, I love them.

These goofy dance parties and children rolling on the floor like puppies. These explorations out into the bitter cold. The ones who shove me down snow hills and the ones who sit on top of me to get closer to the fire.

The stories that we read after lights out to put them to sleep and the constant flow of words onto the mirror.

Because, we put words and color everywhere. Posters on the walls and doors. Markers for the mirror. Notes and quotes and verses every morning. 

Notebooks and colored pens and pencils for chapel time - white pages that they fill with bullet pointed lists and sketched out bits of stories that the speaker tells. He fully has their attention, and they write down more than I have ever seen, capturing thoughts and bits of truth.

We give them ten minutes of quiet time to draw or journal. A stack of construction paper to make cards for the injured youth pastor. Markers and scissors and glue. Sharpies. Colored pencils. Pens.

Triangles that they fill with thought after thought. Young voices leading each other through their favorite tool. "Tell me a thought, a truth you heard the speaker say." "If we really, truly believed that…"

They speak the truths to one another over and over and over again, and, as the weekend goes on, they begin to trust the girls more, begin to trust us more. Begin to find the real words to explain what it is that they mean, what it is that they're thinking and feeling.

BEAUTIFUL & MERCIFUL

PROTECTED

DEPENDENT

They wrap up the triangles with carefully considered words, throwing out a half dozen ideas each time before finally settling on these ones.

They've seen the truths, heard them, spoken them, written them. Bowled us over with their honesty and depth of insight. With the respect that they show as eleven wildly different girls function as a unit.

With the respect that they show to the other kids at camp. To the boys who come knocking on the door for this reason or that one. To the leader who has to disappear from time to time to MC. To the older girls who had claim over me "first."

"I don't feel special anymore," one of mine laughs at me as we stand by the fire eating cookies, waiting for a sixth grade boy to report back that the youth pastor's cards have been delivered, "my counselor knows everyone."

She give a fake pout and goes back to eating her cookie, no more truly perturbed than the other girls who grin and laugh and point their fingers as they accuse me of "making purple" by sitting to talk with middle school boys.

"Your kid…" One of them prefaces her stories about a seventh grade boy, as if I somehow have ownership - responsibility - over this child. 

"Your kid said…" 

"Where's your kid?"

"Did you see M*t**?"

This one who asks to play king of the mountain of the highest mound of dirt and snow we can find. Who laughs as we go skidding down the bottom. Who shows me his smashed finger dozens of times and jumps to my defense when some of my other kids white wash me with snow.

Sixth grade boys who check in when their counselor is missing and come find me for help with a bracelet. Eighth grade boys who take selfies on my phone and set alarms for odd hours of the night/morning. Seventh graders who feel like they have known me forever.

We spend long chunks of free time just sitting by the fire talking, long hours on the bus. Play Mad L*bs and Fl*ppy Bird and laugh at the antics of their caffeinated selves.

Head down to the frozen stream to poke at ice with sticks and rocks, scramble through trees, explore, even though they know every inch of this place already. To cement it in their minds, in case, next winter, we don't come back.

We look up pictures of the camp we are going to this summer and watch videos from winter camp last year. Scatter for a dodgeball tournament and then make our slow way back to the fire.

"Jessica!" my girls come running in at intervals, breathless with cold and the effort of not smiling as they tell me some story about why I need to solve an emergency in the cabin right this instant. So, I run out, back to our cabin that smells like wet sock and fart and perfume, and they jump out to scream at me or to pelt me with pillows until no one can see past long hair and laughter.

"We're all family here," I told one of the newer boys on the bus ride up. "A very lopsided, dysfunctional family, but family. And, we treat each other with respect."

It was a correction at the time, a gentle way to redirect behavior. But, this weekend, it seems to be working hard to prove itself true.

Family that giggles and laughs and pulls into a tight circle to eat chocolate marshmallows and talk about God things. That gets wet and cold and bruised and dances awkwardly when they play our songs. Sleeps in cabins that are too hot or too cold but rarely just right.

That watches out for one another and makes sure that everyone feels as safe as they possibly can.

Family that bickers a little when they get tired and close to home, but that still reacts to each other with all of the respect and patience that they can muster. Family that does competitive well but loses poorly.

Family that has snowball fights. That slips on ice and hauls each other back to their feet. That laughs about farts and poop and people's reactions to getting shocked. That has weird rules and expectations that kind of, sort of, mostly work.

That is as radically different from each other as we are the same. 

Confident. Insecure. Loud. Quiet. Independent. Constantly surrounded by others. Passionate singers. Totally unmoved by corporate music. Playful. Serious. Athletic. Clumsy. Nearly every end of every spectrum we can find.

It isn't perfect. But, they don't expect it to be.

Instead, we take our imperfect mess, and we wrap it up in sugar and bacon and way too many Monst*rs and shake it all up with a knot of middle school hormones and emotions.

And, because God is faithful, we can somehow step back and call it good.