Leader of the Year

Now that I work four part-time jobs and have one unpaid internship, the adventures have unfortunately been kept to a minimum. However, this past weekend was Jr. High Wintercamp at Lake Champion, which is not my favorite place in the world but I do love our middle school youth group and the hilarity that ensues when taking them on adventures...

I actually left earlier than our group on Friday because I needed to be back earlier than our group on Sunday for the annual handbell festival at church. Mike kindly agreed to drive up with me. We left well ahead of rush hour, so had enough time to stop at Johnsonburg because I 1. wanted to hike, 2. wanted to say hello, 3. am constantly campsick and 4. why not, it wasn't that far out of the way. After a pleasant afternoon of Red Trail, hanging out by the fireplace with Kate from Princeton, pizza with the retreat staff and tea with Kurt, Lorelei, Tadd and Abi, we carried on to Glen Spey, New York to register our group for the retreat and await their arrival.

Doug, Katie and fourteen of our middle schoolers arrived in good time, unpacked and immediately got going. At the first leaders' meeting, I volunteered myself and one of our youth for an on-stage activity without listening to what the game was-- turns out it was pie roulette. Thankfully, I was able to slam a whipped cream pie in my kid's face and leave the stage before anyone could get me.

We were extremely fortunate to have sunny, blue skies despite strong predictions of heavy rains. Saturday was a beautiful day. A bit windy, a bit chilly, but it's winter and it was just nice to be able to hang out with the group in the sunshine. My favorite part was probably when they were all exploring the rocky little stream by the bridge; I'd told them to stay away from it in the morning because I didn't want to deal with cold, soggy children, but when I was elsewhere in the afternoon, they wandered down and told me upon catching them there, "Mike said it was ok." Mike did not say it was ok, but I told them fine, as long as there was no whining when they fell in. Many fell in. None whined. It was very peaceful and pleasant just watching them enjoy being outside and in each other's company.

Evening came. After the last group meeting on Saturday night, the retreat traditionally has a skit night lead by various leaders. This year they had something called the Leader Challenge instead. Because I have lots of enthusiasm and no shame, I volunteered for our group. The Challenge went something like this--

Round 1: Relay. All of the leaders were corralled on the stage in the front of the room and given various tasks to complete and be one of the first eight to return to the stage. Tasks included, "Go back to your youth group and return with a scarf tied around your head" (for once in my life I did not bring a scarf, nor did any of our people, so I ran to the youth group where someone tied a jacket around my head-- the leaders accepted it, and I passed the first round); "Go touch the back wall of the room and put on three sweatshirts from your youth group" (almost thwarted by my group's enthusiasm-- they kept putting the sweatshirts on me, one arm through a sleeve, one arm through the neck hole. Every time. I won this round anyway.). Several other ridiculous feats later, the task was to touch the back wall and return to the stage with a youth on our backs. Thankfully, my youth group had one teensy hyperactive child who was perfect for that job. Unfortunately, the final task was to do a lap around the room with said youth on my back, which would have been fine had I not badly pulled my left quad at some point during the round. That was the only part I lost.

Round 2: Trivia. Specifically, middle school trivia. Also, the challenge leaders sprayed us in the face with water guns while we answered, because a room full of screaming junior high kids wasn't enough. Luckily, my questions were, "Who was Woody's owner in Toy Story?" and "What team does Tim Tebow play for" (which I admit, I second guessed myself-- which horse team? Colts? Broncos? But one of our youth group boys was thankfully doing star jumps and screaming BRONCOS! BRONCOS! at the top of his lungs) and "Name the 13 original colonies" (which I admit now that I got wrong in the insanity of the moment, but the guys seemed impressed enough that I was able to quickly name 13 old, east coast states and accepted it... I said Maine but left out Georgia. My bad.). I think the only reason I made it past this round was because it was down to three of us (they needed two) and the girl before me was asked to name all four Beatles... which she didn't seem to be able to do while being sprayed with water and screamed at by all of the middle schoolers, but my kids helped by yelling things like, "ADAM SANDLER! BILLY JOEL!"

Round 3: the pies. It was down to me and one other girl. We were plastic wrapped from our shoulders to our ankles and laid face down on the stage. A line of whipped cream pies was set up, and the object was to squirm our way up the stage and plant our faces in each one along the way. Remember the all the enthusiasm/none of the shame moment? I owned the competition and was crowned Leader Of The Year.

There was also a redemption round for all of the people who didn't win--

Round 4: the mayonnaise. Thankfully it wasn't really mayo, but plain yogurt in little mayo jars that we had to eat with our hands. I won this too.

The weather was beautiful and as always, I am so so thankful to have such amazing youth. Despite coming down with a really rough cold and being covered with bruises and I'm pretty sure there's still whipped cream up my nose and in my ear, we had a pretty great time together.