It’s fall, I’m excited!
For many reasons.
1) It’s really just the best season, ushering in the holidays with the promise of good food and fellowship to come.
2) Leaves – changing color and falling in my parents’ backyard
3) Cool mornings and evenings – this means jeans and long sleeves and a nice mug of tea or coffee on the back porch
4) Fairs and festivals – Dixie Classic, Autumn Leaves – funnel cakes, corn dogs, random people from the hills, getting freaked out on the ferris wheel. Classic.
5) The beginning of a new school year. I’m a dork; I love school supplies and door decorations and class parties (makes me miss being a teacher, but only a little).
6) YOUNG LIFE WEEKEND CAMP
It’s the last one I want to focus on because I’m so. dang. pumped. Here’s the story:
This new school year has been awesome. I love the girls on my hall and I feel like I’m connecting with more and more girls all the time. I have more confidence and faith in Jesus (always helps) and I’m just ready to do ministry. Now, having said that, I’m a selfish and lazy human being and tend to focus more on my own junk rather than hang out with kids. It’s so easy for me to close myself in my room and watch TV or play my guitar. I am reading more though. It’s been great to work through my issues and grow in my faith, but sometimes I feel disconnected with what’s going on around me.
Case in point: I’ve just assumed this year that girls don’t really want to go to YL club because it wasn’t a big hit last year. I’ve been meaning to meet with another teacher to figure out how to have some sort of Young Life thing at school that probably would resemble a youth group or FCA or something. But I’ve been busy and haven’t made the time – typical. A few weeks ago I feel like God was like, “Kate, I’m doing stuff here and I’ll do it with or without you – but I’d really rather do it with you, because I love you.” I realized the train was about to leave the station and I was standing on the platform biting my nails and people-watching.
I’ve been trying to get girls to Windy Gap this year and it actually looked like I was going to have a cabin – yippee! Considering the weekend fell over fall break last year and I took one girl, this was very exciting. But then the girls started dropping like flies when they realized Windy Gap was the same weekend as a big mixer with a boy’s school in Virginia. I wanted to puke and cuss at the same time. I think I really did growl a little bit. I was about to throw up my hands and say FINE, whatever, but then I had a thought: what if I took the girls another weekend? Genius. It was probably a long shot, but I asked around and got some spots at Rockbridge for next weekend. Booyah! And it looks like I’m going to take a cabin of girls. Holy cow, I’m excited. I’ll keep you posted.
Anyway, back to the first part of the story. Like I said, girls kept dropping out of Windy Gap until there was only one student left, a sweet day student who is shy and cute and loves Jesus. She didn’t want to be the only one going (understandably) so her mom called me a couple weeks ago to talk about camp, YL and getting their money back. I was disappointed this girl couldn’t go so I started talking about finding spots on another weekend and this mom was excited. Their family doesn’t know much about YL, but they are gung-ho to support it. I explained a little about the ministry and invited her to the banquet. I hope they come. As we were talking about Young Life and stuff, she said, “Yeah, I think my daughter is going to make an announcement about club at school tomorrow.” This was a Sunday and club is on Monday. I paused and said, “Say what?!” Apparently girls want to go to club. News to me. That’s when I realized that God was telling me, “Let’s go sister.”
This is exciting on a couple of levels. First, I love that this shy girl stood up in front of the whole school and invited them to YL. Second, I didn’t have to do anything. It was all Jesus. I just took eight girls to club that night and they had a BLAST. I’m still blown away. One time last year I took girls and afterwards one of them actually asked me why the night had been a “fail.” Ouch. But these new girls had a ball (doesn’t hurt that they’re slightly boy crazy). And they want more girls to come. And they’re excited about camp.
I can’t believe it. God is good. I love this ministry. I can’t get enough at the moment. Jesus is at work at this school and I’m honored He’s asking me to be a part of it. I’ll post pictures from camp after next weekend.
Fall is a wonderful season. Go out and enjoy the weather – and have a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks for me.
this bittersweet journey 