Friday night of spring break finds seven high school leaders dressed up in wacky costumes and scattered around a shopping center. Because, yes, we love these kids.
Love them enough to become a pregnant woman, a tourist, an old lady, Waldo, Moses. To stand behind clothing racks and make new friends with employees who laugh a little harder with each new group that comes in.
Find a leader. Take a picture. Move to the next store.
Leader hunt. Ice cream. Hang time. Home.
But, as we linger through the end and talk about missions trips for the dozenth time this week, I am reminded not only of the fact that it is Haiti season -- because it is clearly Haiti season! -- but of how very far these kids have come.
Through an old youth pastor, to no youth pastor, to a new youth pastor who has shed his Moses costume to play ping pong and straighten couches, his eyes bright as he spills out ideas in the moments after the last of the kids have scattered.
Through Haiti trips and John Day trips and winter retreats.
#change
#dangerous
#IDinJC
#freedomsrisk
From nights with a dozen kids to nights with ninety and everything in between.
Game nights. Clusters. The weekly dance of gathering in this place.
Shooting stars and wildfires. Long hours of prayer and Happy Day hoe downs. Hundreds of garbage bags filled and emptied and dozens of hours spent cleaning or painting walls.
They have stuck with it. Made a home here. Made a family.
And, even when we look a little wacky. When we sometimes can't find each other in stores and a younger set of the boys can't help but poke at the pillow and ask a million questions about the "baby."
When we are scattered on camping trips and family vacations, and students and adults alike are already crunching the numbers of Haiti logistics. Even when...
There is something in this room that speaks of Love.
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