SouthBound!

It's getting to be that time of year again. We are getting ready for our March Break camp, SouthBound. This week I've been taking stock of my sunscreen and aloe vera, board shorts, and this year, pants, all going into my suitcase for our annual trip to Florida. This is for fairly obvious reasons, one of our favorite trips of the year. We have great experiences with our youth, and I'll be honest, the setting isn't all that bad either. But perhaps a little deeper than the surface is my ulterior motive: to create memories, to share experiences, and to open doors to conversations that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Back story: when Aaron and I were in college, we blew off studying over reading week to join his family in Florida for a family vacation. It was a great week, but with one fairly significant trade off: we were poor students who drove junky cars that would barely make it to the border, so we were left with one choice, Greyhound go anywhere passes for $200. These passes took you anywhere you wanted in North America, but you had to travel an exhausting route. Since then, I have never driven through Alabama on my way to Florida. All in all, we spent nearly 80 hours on the bus, and all of the stops and passengers blended together by the time we reached our 3am destination.

That said, the first year that I took the bus to Florida, Aaron stayed home, and I was having flashbacks. That was also the year that the huge snowstorm hit, and it took us nearly eight hours just to reach the border. However, that time on the bus with 50 youth was amazing! We sang songs, we played baseball up the aisle, we attempted to play cards, and we developed friendships all by the time we reached our camp, more than 30 hours later. It is a great thing to be able to accompany a youth on their first time to Florida (or at least their first time to Florida with us). There is so much to see, from the first gator, to the ocean, to the spectacles of the amusement parks. They are making new friends. They stay up at night talking with their cabins. Our evening program shares the Gospel with them, but not in a bang-you-over-the-head kind of way. Instead, they hear stories, of real life, and of God's presence throughout it. Then our staff listen, and ask questions. It has been amazing seeing kids lives transformed through the community built on this trip.

And in the middle of all of this, we make memories that the youth are still talking about years later. I have kids who come and ask me every year if they can still go, even though they are too old. SouthBound is a weird, wonderful, crazy thing. This week is a busy one, for sure. I am so looking forward to being crammed on a bus with these guys, and seeing our new friendships come out the other side. And that's my ulterior motive.