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.

Spring is Coming!

I must admit, I am one of those people who loves winter (for the most part). Even as I write this, I have just come from a great morning of skiing, where the sun was shining and the snow was good! Part of me doesn't want winter to end, but there is part of me that is anticipating spring. Winter can be hard on our kids at the centre, and it is clear that they are ready for it to end.

This weekend, we seemed to be having a tougher time than usual with our guys. Tensions were high, tempers were flaring, and overall, they were much more aggressive than usual. We wondered if it was a full moon (it was close enough), we wondered if they were getting squirrely from having been cooped up since November (also true), but we knew that there were lots of other things that were going on in their lives that would be contributing to their anger.

We had addressed their particularly aggressive style of pool playing, which has for weeks been resulting in broken cues, bounced pool balls, and even a ball or two being slammed off the table into walls, shins, or the kitchen sink. Most of them told us that they only played like that when they are mad at someone. They were open with us about how they were feeling, which mostly means that they didn't go out of their way to hide it. We talked to a number of guys who told us about anger management, how they'd been kicked out of their programs, broken noses, told their supervisors off, busted a knuckle, or been kicked out of their homes.

Of course, their anger is often the expression of a deeper hurt. Abandonment, fear, pain, sadness, loneliness, and many other things all play into this as well. The dialogues that have been started, no matter how informal they might be, are important ones. The dark, cold, winter is here, but spring is coming! Right now, we are praying for wisdom as we try to find ways for them to have a healthy outlet for their aggression. Please pray for peace. Pray that it replaces the chaos and the anger in their lives. Pray that we are able to have opportunities for real discussion with them. And pray that we can communicate that spring is coming, both figuratively, and in real life. I would be nowhere without the peace of Christ, and I pray that we can share that with them.

Prayer Calendar

In January, we put together a calendar for the year of important prayer points for The Door. If you pray, please consider downloading a PDF of it here.

Thank you for your continued prayer support. We couldn't get through a moment of this ministry without it.