In high school I was befriended by my Young Life leaders. And I enjoyed and grew from their presence in my life. Once I graduated high school I confidently knew that Young Life would no longer play a role in my life. Going in to college I wanted something that would push me and allow me to grow in ways that I didn't in high school. I wanted a new community and a fresh start, and I had no room for YL in my new life.
The summer after I graduated high school I was accepted to do work crew. Work crew is when high school kids go to a YL property for a month and serve campers that come every week. Some of the jobs include: washing dishes, housekeeping, cleaning bathrooms and showers, laundry, cooks, bakers, servers, and people who maintain the landscape of the property.
YL Work Crew/Summer Staff This shows a little bit about what work crew is.
It is hard work, and it is every day from early in the morning until relatively late. Not necessarily the most conventional way to spend a summer. I had only applied because my leaders had continued to ask me to. I figured once the application was complete, then work crew could be something that I could forget about forever.
But once I found out that I had received a spot, I knew that I would end up going. I had a sense of obligation. That feeling, I now realize, was not my own, but the Lord pressing upon me. I went into work crew completely opposed to befriending new people. I saw that month as a month of service. My role was to serve well and nothing more. I would perform my job exceptionally well, and then at the end of the month I would return home. No new friends. That was my plan. Clearly I was optimistic.
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| The bridge that campers cross from cabins into the main camp. |
I had made arrangements to ride up to Lake Champion, New York with two other people also serving on work crew. Two other strangers. Two strangers that I judged. Severely. Oops, #didn'tmeantodothat. What I found from closely scrutinizing their lives (facebook pictures, same thing right?) only served to confirm my ill sentiment toward work crew. Some of my most damning evidence included pictures from a hookah bar and the presence of various solo cups. I named my road trip partner hookah boy. I took hookah boy to be the poster child for a majority of people who do work crew/young life/all Christians but me (small category right?). The other portion of participants were just overzealous and overwhelming.
The first day of work crew, after the car ride with my new best friends, we were put straight to work. Cleaning the dining hall that we would be working in for a month. My first interaction with these people is a story that Kelly John still loves to bring up. We were sitting at a table folding napkins into fancy shapes for the next day's meal. Every once in a while we would run out of napkins to fold and someone would run into a closet to replenish our stock. After the third time we ran out, I decided that I would be the one to go grab more napkins. I came back with table cloths and everyone laughed. Jerks. Hate them all. To this day. But really I just brought back the table cloths and then Kelly went back and got napkins. That's where our friendship started.
Isn't that right Kelly?
Throughout the rest of the month I would meet lots of interesting characters. And when I say interesting, I mean freaks. Freaks and geeks. The first week of work crew was a little rough. I wanted to go home and spend time with my mom and my sisters and my friends before I left for college. Forever. I couldn't shake the feeling that Champion wasn't the place where I needed to be, where I was supposed to be. I knew that I didn't want to be friends with any of these people.
But it wasn't long before I began to question my strong conviction to be friendless. I mean when you live with people and see them every single moment of every single day, it's hard not to learn about each other. And to... care.
The second night we were at Champion all the girls in our cabin sat on the floor and ate puppy chow. The dog food. Kidding. The cereal snack. It was that night that Shelby Phelps/Morris gave us silly bands. She said that her mom gave her the silly bands so she could make friends. I got a light blue wand silly band. Taking one of those was like signing a contract. If you take a silly band you are friends. Those things are serious, you can't break them. In reality it was just a natural human reaction to crave friends and company. I was fighting my nature when I made a vow with myself to not make friends. Does that make sense?
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| The silly band Shelby gave me. Since it's broken, does that mean we don't have to be friends anymore? |
Young Life camps have a lot of themed nights. The first one that we got to experience as a group was western night/hoedown throw-down/rodeo/everybody wears plaid night. And you know in middle school at the end of the year when there's the formal dance? And awkward pre-teens show up in clothes they wouldn't normally wear. And they all dance ten feet away because there are a ton of parent chaperones. And the chocolate fountain is the biggest attraction. You know what I'm talking about? That's what our hoedownthrowdown/western/southern/everybody wears pigtails night felt like to me.
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| This is the attire one wears to western/BBQ/everybody rides bulls night. |
The rodeo/cornbread/everybody chew hay night goes like this. Kids come to a big field and play games that the cowboys used to play way back when. Like dizzy bat and shovel racing. Work crew is there to serve an authentic version of a western meal. This was the first meal that we could all sit not at tables. And where ever we wanted. Watch out world.
Here's a little secret, an insight to the life that I live. I'm not good at making friends. I hate going through the process of making friends. It's probably a hidden emotional scarring from my preschool years. But the fact remains that I get extremely uncomfortable, extremely quickly. So I sat with Kelly (she just wanted to make fun of me again) and Aly, my side bunkmate. And you know in middle school when you get silent lunch because your forgot to get your test signed? When you sit at a table silently while everybody else laughs and eats? You know what I mean? That's a little bit how that meal felt. I know I made this whole thing up in my head, but it seemed like all the girls were sitting together and laughing and becoming best friends, while I kept dropping corn bread in my lap. So even though I wanted to not make friends, I really, really did want to.
Here's the thing. Being at Champion was a combination of time going by really quickly and really slowly at the same time. So I can't pinpoint when it happened exactly, but we all became invested in each other. Maybe it was the night that everyone laid on the pavement and star gazed. Or the night that we all played fugitive. Maybe it was when everybody would chant Jessica! Jessica! and jazzercize at the same time. Or maybe it was the day that we were all saying good bye that we realized how important we had become to each other. And maybe some of us already had a loving heart and came to work crew ready to be invested in each other (not me). But what matters is, by the middle/end/beginning of our time together we became more than friends and more than family. We knew more about each other than most other people in our lives do. We became brothers and sisters in Christ, and we lived that out. So I don't know when I realized that I liked these people, even hookah boy. But it happened. When your hearts are set on Christ, Christ becomes the strongest bond. Stronger than silly bands.
So basically after pistol shooting/western/everybody line dances night these people became my best friends. Just like that. Really.
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| These are my friends. See what I mean by freaks? |
Now that I had all these new friends, I also had all of these new stories/memories. Some of my favorite memories:
The best meal: The best meal I ever had at work crew had nothing to do with the food. But if you must know, it was chicken patty day. Chicken patties with waffle fries. The reason that meal was so great was because of the people. There was this kid from North Carolina (South? Not important). His name was Kurt. He had no friends. Kidding. Kurt had a strong character. What I mean by that is that he had a quiet, firm demeanor. He seemed calm and in control. But he never laughed at my jokes. So he had no sense of humor. And he wasn't funny. That is what I had gathered. And we all know how great I am at being a judge of character.
Then there was another kid. He had his ears gauged. His name was Wes. Fun fact, at work crew Wes's ears got infected. At first Wes was a little intimidating. But in reality he was fun and funny and great.
Then there was Kelly. She was extremely sassy.
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| This is a picture of Wes. Taken yesterday. Or in middle school |
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| This is Kurt. He has bad eyesight. |
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| And you know Kelly already. |
So we all happened to randomly sit next to each other during this meal. Just from the pictures can't you tell this is a hilarious bunch? I don't remember what was said, or what insults may have been thrown out by all parties, but this lunch was the hardest that I laughed. That day. Or maybe to this day. The great thing about this lunch, aside from the fact that it was a comedy show, was the realization that I belonged among these people who are pouring their hearts out into everyone around them, because they can't contain the love they have for Jesus. So maybe work crew was what God wanted me to do. And these people helped me realize that.
Favorite activity: Another great memory was when Katy and I destroyed public property.
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| This is Katy. She was the homecoming queen! |
Katy and I were both servers. After we had finished setting tables for dinner everyone had some free time. Katy and I stayed back. She was taking pictures of the process for setting a table, and since my hands are so perfect in every way, she was using them. Then Katy came up with an idea. Wouldn't it be cool if the plate was broken and then the pieces were put back together? So we snuck back into the kitchen. (We opened the door and walked in). We took a plate and we went out to the woods behind the gym. There we attempted to break a plate multiple times. Who knew those plates were so durable? Finally we threw the plate against a rock and then it broke. We went back in the dining hall and took pictures. Then Nina, our dining hall intern, walked out. Nina could be a little bit scary. She wanted us to serve and serve well. She held us accountable. So is breaking a plate in the woods serving well? Nope, it sure is not. So we had a few options. My idea was to run to the boys bathroom and hide. Katy's idea was to tell Nina what we were doing. It turns out that Nina was fine our vandalizing activitites. Anything for art right?
This memory is one of my favorites because of the conversations that Katy and I were able to have while breaking the law (or maybe just breaking a plate). This is also the moment when I realized that I am someone who judges harshly and swiftly. And when I judge I am so self-righteous about the judgement. When I first met Katy I didn't think that I could ever be close with her, but she was one of the people that I felt I got the closest to during that month. And when I saw Nina coming toward u, I assumed that we would be lectured. Nina had high expectations of us while serving because she knew that we were not serving her, we were not serving the campers, but we were serving Christ.
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| The tables that we cleaned, served, and set three times a day. |
Favorite Days Off: Once a week, on the day that campers would go home we would get a day off. There are two days off that I hold near and dear. On one day we drove to a mall to go watch a movie. The mall that we went to had a curfew. People under 18 could not be out after a certain time. Our group arrived at the mall well after that time. Kids who do work crew are in high school. So a lot of us weren't 18 yet. Babies. Thomas was one of these babies.
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| This is our little baby, Thomas. |
When someone is under 18 and there is a curfew, the only reasonable thing to do is make fun of them, right? And here's the thing, Thomas is great to make fun of. He handles berating rather well, and can even play along. So Katy and I viewed his age as a golden mocking opportunity. And maybe Katy was being a little loud. And maybe a mall cop was walking by. And maybe we got carded. And maybe Thomas was almost kicked out. Another fun story about Thomas, he dove in the lake and split his head open. And then on the car ride home from the mall everyone got car sick. So serious.
My second favorite day off was our last day off. At Lake Champion we are surrounded by perfection. That day, instead of packing, Katy and I decided to take advantage of the lake. We took a canoe and followed people that were kayaking to the other side of the lake. We canoed over a small dam and pulled up to land.
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| Where we lived for a month. |
We had kicked our shoes off. Everyone wanted to go exploring. So we went on a barefoot walk through the woods. On our way back I shared the story of how I learned to accept the love of Christ in my life with Jake. Before everyone came to work crew, we were supposed to write down our testimonies and give them to one of our work crew bosses. I knew the moment when I had become a Christian, I knew the moment when my burdens were no longer mine. But I had never shared that moment. So I didn't write mine down. I felt that my story was mine, and that I didn't have to share it. I mean that moment was between me and my Savior, it wasn't a moment between me and my mom, or me and fifty kids that signed up to volunteer.
One morning I began to write down my testimony. I knew the story, the place, the time and the moment in which the way I was focusing my life changed. But I hadn't realized that there were so many things that led me to that specific moment. Until I started to write, I hadn't acknowledged that my family was what drove literally every single thing I didn't. Until I started to write I hadn't comprehended how much I idolized volleyball, how much it wholly consumed me. So it turns out that I didn't understand my full testimony until one morning at work crew. Because this was the first time that I had been able to process, my testimony wasn't something that I was keen on sharing. Maybe part of that was because of my reluctance to make friends. I had no problem hearing other people's stories. They wanted to share. They had basically memorized what they were going to say. And I hate sharing. Anything. Toys, food, clothes, happiness, memories. But really this story was the most raw thing that I had to myself. It is such a personal thing to share. Personal as in seeing someone naked, that kind of personal.
During that hike was the first time that I fully shared all of my story. I had done a good job of avoiding the when people asked. That moment was when my heart was ready. Throughout the month I had been learning that my story is not really my own. The story that I am a character in belongs to someone greater. I was learning how sharing can encourage growth and can heal others. This lesson hit its' pinnacle during that walk. After that I was able to truly connect with others because I could share how God had worked in my life with my fellow work crew friends.
Worst serving experience: On the last day we were all cleaning the camp, getting it ready for another cycle of campers and another set of work crew. On that day the new work crew kids started to come, and many of them were helping us out. As a server I set the tables every day. I handled the plates everyday. I had not unintentionally broken a single plate all month. Until the last day. When I broke eight. All at one time. So this was my worst memory. This moment served to show me that even though my goal was to be this excellent server and nothing more, I was far from that. And all of my fellow servers didn't yell or chastise me for breaking the plates, they helped me clean. Funny how things work out in the end right?
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| These are all the servers. After a long, hard day of work. |
Favorite cleaning memory: On that same last day Katy and I (I promise I made other friends) were cleaning the girls bathroom. We thought that the center of the bathroom had a drain, so we dumped water on the floor of the bathroom to clean it. Turns out it wasn't a drain. Oops. While we were busy mopping up the pond we had created, Gretchen walked in to the bathroom to help. She brought us cereal that we ate. In the bathroom. Healthy and clean right?
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| Our friendship was meant to be. |
I hadn't really gotten a chance to know Gretchen that well through the month. But while we were hanging out in a flooded bathroom I realized how funny and genuine Gretchen was. And though we were leaving that day, and though we hadn't gotten to know each other extremely well, I knew that Gretchen was a true friend. The Lord is so good for putting these incredible people in my life!
Each person affected my life in such a special way. I think about my work crew family often. It was at this place that I learned what community was. It was at this place that I learned that walking with Christ is hardly ever easy, but alway fulfilling, always right, always the only way to live a life. It was at this place that I had the most real conversations. It was at this place where the Lord called me to put away my obsessions and into ministry. So I think about my work crew family all the time. Because they gave me the strength to go back into a secular and hurting world. Because they encouraged me and grew me. Because they love the Lord.
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