this is no longer my blog

Shortly after writing the post from last night, I went to bed. It was about 8:30. That is usually a time that I consider to be extremely early to go to bed, but last night the only thing that kept me up that late was that I didn't want to wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and not be able to go back to sleep. But there was no problem with that. I slept soundly until my alarm went off this morning. I got up for church, assisted at our two services, helped clean yard flamingoes in between, and then came straight home and back to bed until about 2:00. Sleeping has been wonderful.

I'm still trying to figure out how to tell you all about this past week. It was pretty amazing. The small group I was in charge of bonded extremely well. We had 7 girls, 5 guys, a female adult and me. In our first small group session, I was afraid that I had been given a group of mute children that had chronic fatigue syndrome. They just sat there and looked around at each other and didn't say too much at all. Now, if you know me, you know that I have a lot of energy and that I don't do very well at just sitting there. And I like to talk. The first thought that came to my mind was that my small group was the antithesis of me. The second thought was that, because they were the antithesis of me, that they would end up thinking I was crazy or dumb or some combination of the two, and that would make for a pretty crappy week for all of us.

Well, we met for the required time and then sent them off to supper. When we met for our small group time, again, there had been some fascinating transformation. They were all talking and laughing and joking and moving around. It was wonderful. I raised my arms to the heavens and sang a loud "Hallelujah." Well, in my head, anyway. But the thing that really got me was, as we were leaving to go to evening worship, one of the girls said, "Shouldn't we sit together as a group at worship?" The other adult and I answered that we didn't have to, but if they wanted to that it would be great. They all agreed and we ended up sitting together. It was fantastic. And the bonding just continued from there.

I keep trying to write something, only to backspace and delete it all. Words just don't seem to be good enough to explain what I experienced. One of the volunteer staff told me at the beginning of the week that it would be life changing for me. I just smiled and nodded and disregarded what she had said. How would this be any different than any other youth event that I had been to in the past 10 years? Well, it was. And I'm glad.

I'll work on putting some more of my experiences to words, to share with all of you. I hope that you can be patient and tolerant with me!!