Still digging out from sleep-deprivation after two weeks away at InterVarsity's year-end conference at Rockbridge, a Young Life camp we commandeer annually for a couple weeks in May. Here's a grab-bag collection of thoughts:
*Young Life does camping superbly well. If you ever get a chance to volunteer or go to a Young Life camp, do it. The staff are incredibly gracious and the facilities are first-rate. They call it "camping" but really it's a resort. Think forty-person hot-tubs, four sand-volleyball courts, and meals with desserts to die for.
*For the eighth year I co-directed the small group leader training. Over the course of the two weeks, we trained 180 small group leaders. Over the course of eight years, I've helped to train somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 small group leaders blessing approximately 8,000-10,000 students.
*Over the course of our small group leader training, we went through the entire book of 1 Peter. Hence, my prolific posting from 1 Peter the weeks previous. I've got some more thoughts after going through it twice over the course of two weeks. Great stuff on suffering, perseverance, hope, and submission to others as we follow Christ.
*IV staff are there for two weeks but each school only comes for one. UNC brought some serious noise this year with about 115 students--a record for a year with a summer-school conflict.
*But the highlight for me during the last week with my students before leaving them for my new job (which basically began today) was the annual night where each school does "chapter time."
We met as a chapter to celebrate what God did over the course of the previous year, what he'd been up to during the week at Rockbridge, and what the student leaders were planning for as they looked to what might be ahead.
During chapter time (to our great surprise) the student leaders carved out space for a couple of students to share about how the Lord had used both me and one of my fellow staff, Jennifer Hagin (who's also leaving), to impact them. Then they gave us the mic and allowed us to give a final word to them. Then they prayed over us and blessed us to move on to the work God had called us to.
It was a sweet send-off. And a generous note to end a great year on campus.
The only thing that sullied the week was the fact that I was popping Immodium like Tic-Tacs for most of the week as I caught some sort of g.i. bug that just would not go away.
And so on Friday I drove home, exhausted and spent as I usually am at the end of my two weeks at camp. But this year, like my graduated seniors, the drive home from Rockbridge was a signal event: fourteen years with campus as my primary daily sphere was over. A new chapter is beginning.
I slept for 21 of the first 48 hours I was home. I'm still in recovery. Eventually I'll wake up to my new reality of a new job and begin to figure out what exactly that means...for now, I'm just glad that I'm done waking up to go to the bathroom.
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