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Our Father… (Michindoh Post 16)

June 25, 2013ckirgissLeave a comment

[This post is sixteenth of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

Scripture refers to God as “Father” often enough for it to be one of His main names and attributes.

For some people, that’s problematic. “Father” does not always – in some cases does not at all – equate with trust, protection, and love. In such cases, there are emotional hurdles that must be leaped repeatedly before new life in Christ can be embraced.

But God the Father has some motherly attributes that are overlooked at our own peril and loss.

In the poetry of Job, God calls himself the mother of the ice who gives birth to both dew and frost.

God protects his children under his wings just as a mother hen protects her chicks.

God helps his offspring fly on his wings just as a mother eagle helps her eaglets.

God comforts His children just as a mother comforts her children.

God loves and nurtures His people so they can learn to rest contentedly in His arms just as a weaned child rests in her mother’s arms.

God gives us new life. God rebirths us. God welcomes us into the kingdom of his household.

God is Father as only God can be.

At the same time, God births, nurtures, and loves with a mother’s heart.

For teen moms, created in the very image of God, this is beautiful and breathtaking truth.

Transformation (Michindoh Post 15)

June 23, 2013June 23, 2013ckirgiss5 Comments

[This post is fifteenth of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

The transformation from middle school camp to teen mom camp is moving right along.

By tomorrow this pile of things will be fully laid out into 1 of the 9 nurseries:

This will be another:

These are 7 of the 50 or so totes full of bedding for teen moms:

These are 7 of the 25 or so work staff who are making beds for teen moms:

This is 1 of the 100 or so beds the work crew are making:

These are 5 of the 50 or so pack-n-plays for naptime:

These are 3 of the 40 or so baby bops for snuggling:

And these are all of the strollers, three rows deep, washed, dried, lined up, waiting for their precious cargo to arrive:

It’s not just another day at Michindoh. It’s Day Zero. And we are almost ready to roll.

Day 0 (Michindoh Post 14)

June 23, 2013ckirgissLeave a comment

[This post is fourteenth of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

Day 0.

Today, this must happen in preparation for tomorrow’s arrival of 100 teen moms and their babies:

unload the storage closet (in which is stacked and piled highchairs, bouncy chairs, baby swings, booster chairs, toys, rocking chairs, changing tables, and so much more);

wash everything that is in said storage closet – maybe twice;

divide and deliver all the cleaned stuff to one of eight different nurseries;

deliver mini-fridges to each camper cabin;

put safety plugs into every outlet in every camper cabin;

make beds for every teen mom;

and more. Much, much more.

Here we go.

Hang on tight.

Hope in the Lord

Pray without ceasing.

Amen.

Now-and-not-yet (Michindoh Post 13)

June 22, 2013June 22, 2013ckirgissLeave a comment

[This post is thirteenth of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

YoungLives camp is but two days away. 80+ childcare workers descend on Michindoh tomorrow. 98 teen moms, 98 teen moms’ babies, and 50+ YoungLives leaders arrive the following day.

There is So Very Much to do.

For today, we are living primarily in Wyldlife world, but our eyes can see YoungLives world on the very near horizon. Today is the now and the not-yet of camp in which both the Wyldlife now and the YoungLives not-yet each on their own beautifully embody the complete now-and-not-yet of God’s kingdom.

So on this day, middle schoolers ran crazy in a soccer-field sized mud pit, followed up by a firehose shower…

…while in the planning room, extra supplies continued arriving by mail…

…and in the wash room, the first round of Pack-N-Play sheets were washed and dried.

Mud pits. Fire hoses. Baby wipes. Baby sheets.

This now-and-not-yet is surely one-of-a-kind. And very sweet indeed.

O Lord, hear our prayer (Michindoh Post 12)

June 21, 2013June 21, 2013ckirgissLeave a comment

[This post is twelfth of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

O Lord, hear our prayer (Photo: CKirgiss)

Since you asked: yes – a grown man on the right is wearing a Peeps cheerleading suit. And, um, too, a grown man opposite is wearing a chicken-ish outfit.

While praying.

Which we do a lot at camp.

In thanksgiving. In supplication. In adoration. In meditation. In reflection.

With humility and trust and hope.

Because on our own, we can do nothing. Less than nothing if that were possible.

Before each meal: thank you, God, for this food.

Before each event: cover us, Lord, with your guidance and your power and your protection.

Before each club: fill us, Lord, with your love and your Spirit and your wisdom.

Before and during and after and among and around and through every moment of every day:

without your love Lord, we are lost;
without your healing, Lord, we are broken;
without your wisdom, Lord, we are helpless;
without your grace, Lord, we are drowning;
without your mercy, Lord, we are adrift;
without your Spirit, Lord, we are empty;
without your guidance, Lord, we are blind;
without your joy, Lord, our lives are withered.

Without You, Lord, we are not.

Be our I Am. Always. Ever. Fully. Truly.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

The other kids (Michindoh Post 11)

June 19, 2013ckirgissLeave a comment

[This post is eleventh of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

Week 3’s campers and leaders have been here for just over 24 hours.

We are already in love. It takes only that long to care about each face, each life, each soul.

We are here because of the hundreds of middle schoolers we will meet and serve this month.

But they are not the only kids we love. There are another 8 kids here for the month, ranging from almost-two (the “almost” is very important) to nine. Their parents serve in a variety of roles – head leader, program team, speaker.

They – as much as anyone on the work staff or the assigned team – reflect the image of God and the love of Jesus to every middle-schooler who spends a week here.

Because God is wondrous and loving and miraculous and caring, our 8 staff kids have gelled into a unified mass of enthusiasm and energy that is beyond delightful. Their personalities and quirks and smiles and jokes and joys (plus eating habits and sleeping schedules) all add up to one big bundle of fabulous awesomeness.

It has the potential to be so many other things. Tiring. Trying. Challenging. Dreadful, even. Throw together 8 young children for a month, living in close quarters, away from all that is familiar, and pretty much anything can happen.

Because of God’s great grace, what has happened here is beautiful and lovely and sweet. If saying goodbye to campers is difficult (and it truly is) then saying goodbye to 8 children that have become collectively “ours” is going to break many a heart.

We are all about the middle-schoolers, to be sure. But like Jesus, we are oh so very glad that the staff children are here, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

Michindoh staff kids (Photo: CKirgiss) — Michindoh staff kids, youngest 6 of 8 (Photo: CKirgiss)

They’re Back (Michindoh Post 10)

June 18, 2013June 18, 2013ckirgissLeave a comment

[This post is tenth of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

It’s a good day. After bidding farewell to Week 2 campers last night, we welcomed Week 3 campers to (what we will do our very best to make) one of the best weeks of their lives.

During the final approach to camp, “best week” may not be writ large on the horizon. Coming from any of the four directions, this is what kids will see in the final few miles:

Heading to camp (Photo: CKirgiss) — From the north (Photo: CKirgiss)

Though each of these views embodies a certain amount of lovely nostalgia and roadside Americana, none of them scream WOOT! WOOT! in middle-school vernacular.

Nor do they radiate AWESOMENESS! in middle-school style.

But the final view before deboarding the bus makes up for whatever might be lacking in the final few miles.

Welcome.

We’re so glad you’re here.

We’ve been waiting for you all day.

We are going to do everything we can to make this the best week of your life.

We are going to do this because someone did the same for us. Because we want to. Because it fills our hearts.

(But mostly because we love Jesus.)

Welcome to camp, everyone. It’s going to be great.

Lost and Found (Michindoh Post 9)

June 17, 2013June 18, 2013ckirgiss2 Comments

[This post is ninth of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

The busses just pulled out. 350 campers and leaders are on their way home.

We are left here to rejoice in the way we saw God at work – and to cope with the empty space left in our hearts by those who just departed.

It’s hard to say goodbye.

Sure, tonight we might get to relax, and tomorrow we don’t need to rise for an early breakfast. But we will miss the faces we were just getting to know and the smiles we were just growing used to and the souls we were just starting to love.

Those 350 middle-schoolers left behind a deep well of joy and hope and grace and love.

They also left behind this:

. . . shirts and shorts and shoes and all manner of stuff that a middle-schooler may not miss, (but the mother who bought it might).

It’s this way at the end of every camp week. Kids are so busy running and playing and laughing and dancing and hanging out and having fun that lost items of this-or-that often go entirely unnoticed. Unmissed. Unseen. Unsought. Unclaimed.

The items in this pile that are expensive, clean, stylish, and attractive might someday be claimed.

The items in this pile that are ripped, worn, smelly, and dirty will not.

Thank goodness the same is not true of God’s view towards humanity.

He is never too busy holding the stars in place or breathing life into the universe to not notice a lost soul.

And He does not consider any lost soul – regardless of whose it is, where it has been, what it has done – to be a merely this-or-that item, not worth the effort of seeking and finding.

Jesus came not to condemn the world but to redeem it. Jesus came to offer hope to those who know they are broken. Jesus came to show us how to live.

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He does not distinguish between those who appear to be clean, stylish, and attractive and those who are obviously ripped, worn, and filthy.

He seeks them all. Unceasingly. Lovingly. Faithfully. Gently.

And when He finds even just one – well, then the cosmos is momentarily shattered by the joy within His heart and the celebration throughout the heavens.

We once were lost. We now are found.

Nothing will never be the same.

(happy) ABBA, FATHER (‘s day) (Michindoh Post 8)

June 16, 2013June 16, 2013ckirgissLeave a comment

[This post is eighth of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

Dateline: Michindoh – Week 2, Day 4.

It’s a typical Day 4 at Wyldlife camp. Except that it’s also Sunday, June 16th.

On this Father’s Day the Work Crew and Summer Staff, who have left their fathers behind for a month, are enthusiastically celebrating the holiday by . . . doing what they do every other day – rising early to start a day of work that will not end until sometime after 11:00 tonight. Were I to list all the details and responsibilities of their individual jobs, you would want to curl up in a ball under your bed covers and take a very long nap – a luxury they do not have.

The work staff welcomes with expectant joy the long days of work, as well as the cramped sleeping quarters, the close communal living, the absence of technology, the lack of significant alone time, the separation from friends and family, and so many other things that would be viewed with disdain in the normal hustle and bustle of daily life back home.

They welcome, and on occasion patiently weather, these things so that a thousand middle-schoolers and a hundred teen moms will be introduced to the Abba Father who knit them together in their mothers’ wombs, whose loving thoughts towards them are too numerous and too profound to comprehend, and who waits patiently yet longingly for the chance to embrace them, put a ring on their finger, new sandals on their feet, and a brilliantly clean robe on their shoulders in preparation for a celebration feast to end all feasts.

They welcome, and on occasion grow weary of, these things so that a thousand middle-schoolers and a hundred teen moms will know beyond doubt that Abba Father, who created all that exists and whose majestic power extends farther than the east is from the west, waits longingly for the moment He can call each and every one of them Daughter or Son.

They welcome, and on occasion have time to glory in, these things because they have a heavenly Father whose love and grace extends to (and infinitely beyond) the thousand middle-schoolers and hundred teen moms they will selflessly (even when battling self-importance) and tirelessly (even when exhausted beyond measure) serve this month.

Depending on one’s earthly biological circumstances, Father’s Day might be a time to mourn or a time to celebrate, a time of painful memories or a time of contentment.

Beyond our immediate biological circumstances, there are no such widely divergent oppositions.

There is just God. Father. Abba. Into the hearts of His children, He sends the Spirit of his Son, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”

We are no longer a slave to the world’s lies or our insecure fears or our own messy pride.

Rather we are God’s own children. His Daughters and Sons. His very own.

What a glorious thing to celebrate today and every other day.

(And to all the fathers we’ve left behind us for a month – we love and miss you truly.)

Home-away-from-home sweet home (Michindoh Post 7)

June 15, 2013June 15, 2013ckirgissLeave a comment

[This post is seventh of a series in which I reflect on spending a month at camp for Wyldlife (middle schoolers) and YoungLives (teen moms). You can follow by subscribing to this blog below. All posts are categorized as ‘Michindoh 2013’.]

Going to camp for a month is no small thing. Besides all the packing for the destination stay, there’s all the preparation for the departure site. Read: who will take care of things at home while we are gone? And by “things” I mean the lawn and the dog, neither of which is self-sufficient or hibernatorial. In 20+ years of fairly consistent camp assignments, neither the lawn nor the various dogs have ever been left unattended. I consider this fact to fall somewhere on the miraculous end of the camp prep scale.

One of the blessings of camp life is leaving the things of home back home where they belong.

One of the challenges of camp life is feeling at home when not really at home.

There are several possible ways to accomplish this, some of which are beyond foolish (we’ll just skip over those, shall we?), and others that are tried and true.

1. Avoid the sleeping-on-a-lumpy-mountain-top syndrome, or conversely the sleeping-on-a-lumpy-but-flat-inner-tube debacle by bringing your own pillow. Or two or three.

2. Avoid the what-exactly-is-scrunched-around-my-neck-and-face nightly worries by bringing your own blanket. Or two or three.

3. Bring craft materials. Lots of it. Because there will probably be some six-year-old girls at camp who will require a special diet of sidewalk chalk, glitter, markers, glue, and various doodads. In large daily doses.

4. Bring books. Lots of them. Because there will probably be some . . . oh, let’s just be honest. Because you can’t leave home without them. And by “them” I mean ten. Or maybe twenty. Or more.

5. Find the nearest thrift store and buy a $1.99 string of gigantic illuminated Christmas stars to drape across the front of your camp abode. (Also: probably buy some more books.) Nothing screams sophisticated and classy like a $1.99 string of gigantic illuminated Christmas stars. That blink.

Christmas Stars in June (Photo: CKirgiss)

The stars are really the icing on the creating-a-home-away-from-home-sweet-home cake.

More importantly, they are a reminder that we serve the one true God who, at the beginning of all things, spoke the stars into existence, stars that are counted and named.

They are a reminder that we hope kids meet the Creator who laid the foundations of the world while the morning stars sang together and the angels shouted for joy.

They are a reminder that we follow the only fully human/fully divine Messiah whose birth was announced to shepherds and kings alike by a brilliant star.

They are a reminder that we are very small – much smaller than a single real star of the universe – but are still beloved by the Almighty God.

When I gaze at the night sky – the moon and stars that You lovingly made and placed and named – I can only cry out: “What are we, Lord, that You would consider us worthy of even one short moment of Your love and attention? Who am I, Lord, that You would become a helpless babe in order to rescue and rebirth me?”

My home-away-from-home sweet home blinking stars are tacky beyond words.

But they are also quirky and delightful and joyful beyond words.

They make me smile, even as they help me remember Who we love and why we are here.

Breathe

the blog of Crystal Kirgiss

Author: ckirgiss

Our Father… (Michindoh Post 16)

Transformation (Michindoh Post 15)

Day 0 (Michindoh Post 14)

Now-and-not-yet (Michindoh Post 13)

O Lord, hear our prayer (Michindoh Post 12)

The other kids (Michindoh Post 11)

They’re Back (Michindoh Post 10)

Lost and Found (Michindoh Post 9)

(happy) ABBA, FATHER (‘s day) (Michindoh Post 8)

(And to all the fathers we’ve left behind us for a month – we love and miss you truly.)

Home-away-from-home sweet home (Michindoh Post 7)

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(And to all the fathers we’ve left behind us for a month – we love and miss you truly.)

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