"me" as a four-letter word

A good Christian book should give you a nice, solid gut-punch. If it doesn't, go find something else to read.

I just read The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness by Tim Keller (Dude, that's 99 cents on Amazon for the Kindle edition.) It's a short book - only 30-40 minutes to read it, but well worth it if you've got an e-reader. (Go buy it, go now.)

Keller argues, in a more eloquent and exhaustive way than can be blogged, that we shouldn't think too highly or lowly of ourselves, but rather we ought to just... not think of ourselves. Self-forgetfulness and all that. Humility, it's said, isn't thinking less of ourselves, it's thinking of ourselves less. Dwelling on self-esteem is fruitless. There's no need to compare yourself to others. There's no sense in considering how you're going to prove yourself.

For whatever reason, "self" has become a big, horrible word for me lately. I was convicted this summer as I processed our activities and reflected on them that there was way way waaaay too much me in there.

How did I do?
Was I ready for this?
What does this say about me?
How does this reflect me?
...What's next for me?

That last one, especially.

Do we all do this, or is it just me?

(See, there I go thinking about myself again.)

It's a natural tendency to view the thing that you're responsible for as yours. You're running the show. You're (sort of) controlling things. If you're not there, it might not happen. Consequently, you slap your forehead when you forget and pat yourself on the back when you succeed.

And then... It's kind of horrifying to stop yourself and realize that you're thinking about the ministry you're in as yours, and that you're aligning its impact and efficiency with your own, and gauging its success primarily on your own perceptions and feelings. The pressure and back-patting are healthy and relevant to some degree, but the problem comes when its the first thing you go to when you plan, respond, and reflect.

I am guilty of thinking of myself first, and it goes deeper than this ministry. It digs deep into my entire spiritual life.

Deep down, I realize that I am obsessed with my spiritual sufficiency and my spiritual progress, and that I view the world as my story starring me.

Man, all I think about is me sometimes.

"Am I growing closer to God?"

I no longer view that as an innocent, relevant, or even positive question. To approach it grammatically, I am supposed to be the object, not the subject. No matter how badly I want to build myself and prove myself, I am little more than a forgiven recipient of the love of Christ. I have no ground to stand on. There is nothing I can do, no progress that I can make, that can change the way God loves me. Even at my worst - especially at my worst - he would still send Jesus to die for me.

As such, if I have to accept that as true for myself, I have to accept it as true for everyone.

So I've got nothing on you.

And there's no sense in framing everything around myself. And there's no one in the world I've got any right to compare myself to or look down on, or despise, or withhold any of the entire breadth of the love that Christ has shown me. So I better get busy simply imitating the love of Christ, and get my eyes off myself.

I believe that this is a long-standing work-in-progress in me, to let go of myself. This will take some time, I know, and Keller's book was a well-timed read. I'm beginning to see this self-obsession manifested in a number of ways, not least of which is my writing.

I'm considering abandoning my mundane, daily journal, and significantly altering my approach to this blog. I don't want to write about me anymore. Maybe not for a while, maybe not ever.

Year after year

I did a little math with my free time while I was home in Michigan the last two weeks. This summer marked my tenth in camp ministry. That includes my first two as a Counselor in Training while I was still in high school, and the five I spent as a counselor / core staff at Grace Adventures, the one I was in Tanzania, and the two I've spent here in Puerto Rico as program director. And that's not even counting the summers when I just showed up for a week or so to handle an overflow of campers as a rent-a-staff.

Having thusly proved my credentials, I pretty much have this whole Camp Ministry thing down and should therefore be finished making mistakes.

Yes, well.

I remember a phone call I made to my old director before last summer, in the last few days before staff training. I asked him what I should do if I make a mistake. I don't remember exactly how he worded it, but he basically said that I should just expect to make a bunch of them and move on. While he talked, I was busy realizing how much I had just betrayed my own nerves and fears about being the dude in charge of a summer program.

Now that we've wrapped up our summer camps for 2012, I can proudly say: I made several mistakes and no one ever demanded my immediate firing, and things never came to a screeching halt, and summer turned out pretty great. After all, camp has a way of running itself.

Now that I say that, I realize I probably could have gotten more sleep.

But anyway. One of the reasons camp went well, and that it's able to run itself, is because we had a solid summer staff.

Seriously, though. This was a consistent and constant comment from parents, visitors, mission teams, and other staff:

"Your staff, man... they're pretty awesome. Like, seriously. I didn't expect this."

Okay, that's my paraphrase. But I heard it a bunch of times, and I swelled with pride each time. And I grew increasingly appreciative of the way our counselors showed up and owned camp like they did. Nope, they weren't perfect - like me, they made mistakes, too - but they definitely exceeded expectations. People don't expect a bunch of college kids to be able to handle this, to be this dedicated and this responsible.

But they're the hands and feet of the ministry, and a big part of the big things that God continues to do here. We've got a really solid crew of high-schoolish and college kids who come back year after year and do this camp thing better every time. They volunteer their time a few weekends in the fall, winter, and spring to help us with retreats, too.

When campers come, they expect to see them.

That, to me, is huge. There's a bond of trust, and a sense of community amongst the campers. We're blessed to have a lot of returners and a healthy mix of new faces who quickly settle in like old friends. Because many of them are old friends. The returners know when campers or counselors are missing. They have real relationships, amongst themselves and with the staff. Many of our counselors have been able to invest in the same kids and witness their growth year after year.

It's huge. And I think it's a huge positive for the ministry here at Campamento del Caribe.

So, mad props to our summer staff. Job well done. Keep it up, year after year.



(how about I conclude with an old, semi-relevant Audio Adrenaline song:)

The End is Near

Last week, as we wrapped up our high school camp, I stood in front of a packed house of campers, counselors, dores, and parents. We'd watched our final video, I'd handed out the spray-painted medals with the theme "¡Gánatelo!" scribbled in Sharpie, and made our final announcements. I bid the campers adios and had just started to send them off to the Multipurpose building to wait for their parents when I saw Jerry and Julio coming up. "One more thing," they said.

I knew what it was. I handed off the mic and nonchalantly wandered back toward the projector screen or something to poke around and look busy while they talked. Jerry told them in his Bolivian Spanish, the non-native-speaker type I can mostly understand, that they had one more announcement. He called me over, and put his hand on my shoulder. I remember what he was talking about but I have no idea what he said, because I was in that face-beet-red Oh-crap-Oh-crap-Oh-crap they'retalkingaboutme state.

"Something something we have an announcement something thank you for all your hard work something something Agosto." Then I was looking at all of the faces in the crowd, looks of surprise and inquiry for many, and indifference for some. Here was a room full of people thinking about me and my time here and what I've been doing for the last two years. I looked at him. "Un placer," I said. 

It's been a pleasure. Not much else to say. After all, Yo soy un hombre de pocas palabras. Used that in a joke at closing the week before. Didn't say it this week, but I thought it. In Spanish.

I thanked them. They prayed for me. I got the mic back, told 'em I wasn't gonna make a speech or anything, but I was sure gonna miss everyone when I left at the end of August. I made a few more announcements to the padres as the kids walked out, then dismissed them. In front of our multipurpose building, as the campers filed out, there were lots of bendiciones from parents, from kids, the many I've gotten to know in the almost two years I've spent here.

"It won't be the same without you!" "I'm gonna miss you!" "Are you gonna come back to visit?"

I wasn't sure they were really going to make an announcement or anything. I didn't expect it, I didn't revel in it... I wasn't sure how to handle it. Really, I could only stand there and think about how much I don't like attention, and how awesome I must be to not like attention, and - how does anyone really like being the center of attention anyway? Why would anyone want that?

I've invested myself here for nearly two years, grown accustomed to the culture of the camp and the island. I've met a lot of people. It hasn't always been fun, or easy, but it has always been good, right, appropriate for me to be here. My only regret is not spending more time working on my Spanish.

For goodness sakes, people, if you're gonna live abroad, you gotta learn the language.

Camp is a bubble. It's wonderful for the kids but often difficult for staff. I am eager, excited, nervous to get back to my home, to my family, to Michigan. What a wonderful state it is.

But going home is inevitably going to be hard, and I am most definitely leaving something behind here. So many relationships, friends, memories. The landscape, the community. The Climate.

Oh, man... winter. I haven't seen you since 2009.

Unichallenge 2012

We do this thing here at Campamento del Caribe called the Unichallenge. It's a crazy, awesome, dangerous, energetic, and relevant thing. We put months of work into it and it wears us all out but we love it and I wouldn't change it. It's something we do really well, and I wish I could take credit for it but it started a long time before I ever got here.

Essentially, it's a full day of competition among groups of teens, college, and even older people who come from churches, schools, or social groups. On the surface, it's a competition, but I've begun to look at it more as a ministry, as a sort of lab, or scenario, or outlet, in which Christians are supposed to compete - and act, and live - as Christians are supposed to. We set it up, we plan it, we invite them. We kick it off with a loud, chaotic opening ceremony where each team gets to present itself. After that, we're all deaf, and we spend most of the day competing in the hot sun (or last year, pouring rain). At the end, we worship together. We don't really preach much. There's a little bit of explanation of what this whole thing is about and a few key points, but this definitely doesn't feel like church. In the end, it's the competitors that minister to each other. We're just... providing the environment, I guess.

I, uh... well... ya got me.

This year that environment included a 20 minute run, over balance beams, through tires, into the ocean.

And jousting in the bog.

And extreme gold rush. (In which two teams face off, having to cross enemy territory, retrieve their "gold" and bring it safely back to their side. Typically we play this with little blocks of wood. This year, we used coffee cans full of cement.)

And a Quest For Fire - a scavenger hunt to build a torch.

And an obstacle course.

And some extreme Steal the Bacon.

And some good old-fashioned AWANA games. (Just as I remember them - the bean bag toss, some relays, and Tug of War.)

It sounds cliche and corny, but it's not about winning the events. Sure, we give them a few extra points, and at the end of the day we crown someone the champion and give 'em a trophy. But the points come more from sportsmanship, unity, attitude, and spirit, than from winning each event. Actually, if you're out there to win at all costs, you will lose out in the other categories. You could win every event and lose the Unichallenge. You could lose every event but do it with a good attitude, good sportsmanship, and a spirit of support and positivity, and win the whole thing. Typically, the overall champion has a pretty good mix of friendly competition and athleticism. Sportsmanship is king.

In that environment, you always get a few people who miss the point. But you also see people who do it, and do it really really well. We always see teams stopping and elevating the needs of others above themselves. I saw one team in The Run carrying members of the opposing team to the end.

It strikes me that this is not only the sort of thing that rewards character, but also comes pretty close to the heart of college ministry. The competitors come in all shapes and sizes, but most of them are college age. People genuinely want to come and be a part of this. We had interest from 17 teams, but ultimately drew the line at 14. That's more than 150 people coming out voluntarily to participate, to endure a day full of crazy stuff to enjoy community, to have fun, to spend good time in fellowship.

College and 20-something ministry is elusive for lots of churches, I know. It seems like college ministry is either a priority and the majority of the church - which can alienate other demographics - or it's completely missing. It's all or nothing, it seems. I've walked into a number of churches where there's a gaping hole between the youth group and the young married folks with toddlers. I think some people think when kids go to college, they disappear from the church, or from the faith altogether. Some of them do. But not all of us disappear. We go to places where we feel included, where we have a chance to expand our social circles, where we get fed (literally and figuratively) and where we're engaged or challenged.

They/we want to see faith on display. A competition, like Unichallenge, appears to be a great way to do that.

stress and dead horses

Please tell me that I am not the only one who does this. Last night I realized sometime around 2 am that I was stuck in some kind of thought pattern. Just thinking over and over again about pointless, stupid things, mostly logistics about work, about the Unichallenge next weekend. It was like my brain forgot that it was allowed to sleep, to do nothing, to rest, to take its regularly scheduled time off. It decided that this was a great time to fruitlessly attempt to figure out all the stuff that it has the next two weeks to figure out. This used to happen a lot more. Me, laying there in bed, not even realizing that I'm not sleeping.

Scumbag brain, won't even tell me I can't sleep.

And suddenly I realized that I wasn't sleeping, which was enough to break the cycle.  I got up, drank some water or something, crawled back into bed, and fell asleep. It actually used to do this a lot more and I don't really know why. My best guess is that it has something to do with caffeine or stress. I've cut back on the caffeine lately, but there isn't much I can do about the stress this time of year.

Somewhere in there, I dreamed I saw a dead horse on a roof. It was weird... weird enough for me to whip out my phone in my dream to take a picture of it so I could prove it later on. It's the kind of thing that must mean something. Then this morning my brain decided that 6 am - on my day off, no less - would be a lovely time to start back up again. I'm sure the "beating a dead horse" metaphor applies. But also, I really did see a dead horse by the side of the road the day before, and I wasn't dreaming. At the moment, I didn't have the time - or callous attitude - to whip out the phone to prove to everyone that I saw a dead horse. Because nobody here would really care, because it's really not a huge surprise.

And so I was laying there, in the early morning, hearing the waves crash into my back yard as they do all day, everyday, with my brain not-so-sneakily trying to get some work in. If I could remember what exactly it was thinking about, or if I'd made any progress at all, I'd consider trying to count them as work hours. But as it turns out, lost sleep doesn't count for billable hours.

I'm currently in the time of year where there's this huge cloud of undone stuff in front of me for our summer events. (If anyone has pointers on handling this kind of thing, send 'em my way.) One guaranteed way to add to the stress is to think about how I am the last line, the buck, as it were, when it comes to all that stuff. Generally, if I don't do it or tell/remind/delegate someone else to do it, it doesn't get done. Last year, as I learned my way around, lots of little things never got done because I never knew we had to do them and only realized them after they were missed.

One side of camp ministry is there are seemingly millions and millions of tiny details that need to get done. Stuff to move around, people to call, materials to get ready, ideas to scratch out, decisions to make. Not only am I trying to do all of those things, I'm trying to remember and record them to make sure they're not surprises to the person who succeeds me here once I leave. And they're all floating in my head, and on slips of paper, and on slightly more organized pieces of paper. This time of year, that workload of stuff is only going to increase. I'm learning what it means to be responsible for something, and the importance of getting real rest, and the difficulty therein.

But the other side of camp ministry is that the stuff that absolutely has to get done has a way of getting done. Everything else just fills in the cracks, non-essentials, details, which actually are the majority of the things that cause my stress, that keep me up at night. Or wake me up in the morning.

Somethings, and retreats from start to finish.

By now I oughta have this whole "retreat" thing down.

We did a pair of them last February, a few months after I got here. We did another set of them in the fall, and just finished up another set of them over the last couple weekends. So I've handled six of these things, three for older kids and three for younger kids. They're full of excitement and anticipation and stress and sunburn and gratitude. And each one has its own lifespan:

First, the planning stage where we dream big and everything's perfect, and we want to get the giant inflatable moonbounce thing for the kids and have this absolutely mind-blowing life-changing heart-impacting weekend, fully saturated with opportunities to minister. The planning is really fun, and it always looks really great on paper.

Then you get the marketing all finished and mailed, and book a speaker. You get someone (Suleika or Bubu) to make some phone calls, and the list starts to fill up. You write devotions, make sure the speaker has everything he needs, start filling out the schedule. Then the reality of limited resources sets in. No giant inflatable moonbounce thing.

For the week leading up to the retreat, it's slightly less fun. In my experience, no matter how many checklists of tasks I make, there's always this hovering blob of undefined, undone stuff that probably has to get defined and done but I probably won't realize it until kids start to arrive. I'm always forgetting something, and realizing I'm forgetting something, without knowing what that something is.

That last week, the list really starts to fill up. For my first retreat, we ended up with some 60 kids signed up, and around 50 attended. The next retreat, we crept up over sixty on the signup sheet, and had 54 show. This time, we had 79 kids sign up, and 62 actually came.

And by the time they arrive, you realize that regardless of the perfect little details you never thought of until too late, camp is here, kids are here, and to some extent things begin to run themselves. Doesn't stop me from running around like a mad man, but 60 often screaming/mostly enthusiastic teenagers have a way of pumping you up. It's something, it's Holy-Spirit-infused enthusiasm.

From Friday night, until long into Saturday, that enthusiasm and a dose of adrenaline run the show. I take note of the stuff we have to do better, like: no more registration in our tiny office if 62 kids are gonna have to check in individually. Getting kids towels. Band-Aids. Maaaaybe some behavior management, but the older kids usually stay in line for the 42ish hours we have them with us.

It's fun until the sunburn kicks in sometime late Saturday afternoon. They have free time. I stop. Enter my nothing box. Maybe have a couple of long blinks in there. Saturday night, after a decent meal, we go go go until the sun is down. Some of them want Capture the Flag more than anything else. Some of them refuse to play it. Can't please everyone. Later, they go to bed. Lots of yelling, pillow fighting, stuff that might not fly at Summer camp. I should enforce lights out. I probably don't.

Sunday - it ends too quickly. Up and at 'em. Ejercisio. Desayuno. Tiempo a solas. Tema en la capilla. Empacar y limpiar. Almuerzo. Adios.

They leave. Then: More kids are on the way for the next weekend.

I guess maybe you never get these retreats "down." You try to improve them every time, making improvements and changes that may or may not work, or make things better, or keep kids happier, or help them go deeper. Something.

This Spring, they were successful. Of course they were. Glory to God, I'm supposed to say, I think. But that's a given. I'm the last guy to try to take credit for a camp going well. I always forget things, fail to write them down, something. Most program directors probably feel the same way. The older kids retreat was a blast, and kids were parroting back to me stuff that Nick, the speaker, talked about in Chapel. They loved it. Raved about it on Facebook.

The younger kids retreat - it's been a bit of a struggle to get kids to show up. It's a little deflating when only 14 kids are on site, but it's still a success. They have fun, they love it, they learn, they can't wait to come back. But there's gotta be some way to reach more of 'em.

I say they're successful. But I really don't know how you could deem anything a failure in ministry. And I'm not saying that in a hopelessly optimistic way, but I really mean it. Maybe I haven't been around long enough. Regardless of how I feel about a retreat's attendance, or if I bumble through a talk, or a game goes south or gets boring really fast, or I fail at navigating a behavior issue, I know that something probably happened, something good. God gave some kid a lesson he'll recall one day. A counselor, a cook, a staff member learned how to do something better. I learned something. God did something, regardless.

Time to go back

Okay. Power blog. It's getting late and I need to go to bed because

I'm flying back to Puerto Rico tomorrow.

This was my third trip home, and it will be my fourth flight to Puerto Rico. It never gets easy to say good bye, but I think I do understand them a little better.

It's good to come home. Good to be around family and friends and snow, and separate from the pace of life and work in Puerto Rico, from salty air and daily routine, so I can go back and approach it anew, refreshed. I saw lots of people here. I missed many more. When you have finite time (and it's all finite, isn't it?) you just can't plan it all. That's no break. That's no vacation. That's not refreshing. So - sorry if I missed you.

The inevitable question people ask is - how much longer will you be there? If you've read this blog in the last few months, you may have sensed that I won't have a very specific or concrete answer. There are times when I'm sure I'll be finished there this fall, and there are others when I think - I'm doing good work, I feel useful, I'm growing, why ever leave?

It's a tough decision to make. It's almost certainly tougher than the decision to go there in the first place. It's not one I've got my mind fully made up on. I know I'll be there at least through this fall. Maybe longer. Maybe not. Professionally, I should stay. Personally, I'd like very much to return here, to normal.

But of course, "normal" is gone.

The decision to stay or go (or what to do or where to move or when to go or what to wear), in my unprofessional, non-seminary-trained opinion, is not the same as following or abandoning the will of God. To stay there, I can see where He would use me. To go home, I can see where he would use me.

It would be easy to obsess over it. Regardless, It is good that I have been there, and it is good that I am going back now. There's a lot to do.
Lots of camps to plan
Staff to train
Kids to reach
Places to explore
Stuff to learn
Advice to follow.

Let's go back.

CDC Men's Retreat 2011

Here at CDC this weekend, this happened:

We hosted our first ever Men's Retreat and some of the guys went on an Iguana hunt. No, we didn't eat them, but we would have tried if we could have gotten the meat off the carcass. And before you cry foul for killing off ugly but exotic animals without getting some protein from 'em, they're an invasive species and you're supposed to shoot 'em. In case you don't know how big an Iguana can get, that shows you the scale. Each of those is about five feet from head to tale. They're heavy too.

Also there was some of this:

But it wasn't all high-flying chess action. There was also some of this:

That ball probably weighs at least 30-40 pounds. Look at the next picture and you'll see Lawrence Trumbower, who has been a missionary here running the radio station for nigh 40 years. He's rocking Air Jordans. I've also seen him jump into a creek from a 30 foot cliff.

But of course, we had to get fed, and since we couldn't have Iguana, we had Pinchos. They're really just deliciously grilled meat on a stick. And what's a men's event without consuming burned meat? We thought, we have 20 guys, 50 pinchos oughta be more than enough. Not necessarily.

You cook 'em like this:

Taaaan sabrosa.

But we had to get fed in other ways:

Pastor Miguel Ortiz from Iglesia Biblica Juana Diaz spoke about being Men of Power.

...and we had some great discussion.

It was a great weekend. Men's fellowship is really important, and is overlooked far too often. We got great feedback from the guys who attended, and we'll definitely do it again, even better, next year.

One Year, Today

A year ago today, I arrived at CDC a little after midnight, tired and sweaty, with no soap. Dave gave me some, and today that same bar is sitting on the sink in my bathroom. Bachelor move, I know.

It's smaller now, cracked and discolored. But it still gets my hands clean and I think it'll be around for a while longer. I don't know how long a bar of soap is supposed to last. I swear I've been using it regularly. But things like that – the longevity of a bar of soap – make you realize a year really isn't all that long.

It looks a lot longer beforehand than afterward. For most people, it goes by and life changes imperceptibly. Not much is different when it's over. Your age is +1 and there are new songs on the radio and your nieces are talking a lot more.

Life kind of plods forward. That's true for the people back home who must think I'm living some crazy, exotic life, and it's true for me here. It's not everyday that I'm swinging off ropes over waterfalls into jungle pools. That was last Tuesday. It's not everyday that I'm rescuing baby sea turtles. That was a few weekends ago.

Leaving home is a sacrifice, no matter where you land. There are trade-offs. I would trade jungle waterfalls for just one afternoon of lazy football-watching with my family.

I still consider Grand Rapids my home and I'm realizing that, though I've only been in PR a year, I've actually been gone a lot longer. In 2008, I was in Africa. In 2009, I spent a summer and fall at Grace Adventures then moved to St. Joseph to work for Whirlpool. In 2010, I left St. Joe to go back to camp and then moved here to Puerto Rico. For much of the last three years, I've been away.

Gone.

Sometimes I get the feeling that while everyone back home is putting down roots and getting married and taking big, giant steps forward in life, I'm missing out on something. Most of my friends and family are back there, and most of the people I'm close to here are married or in a different stage of life. As a result, there have been some lonely days.

“Lonely,” for the record, is a terrible word. Just saying it, confessing it, affirms and exacerbates the feeling of it. But if I'm going to be honest, it's been a reality for me here that has colored my experience. I don't like being gone, being alone. But, you ask...

“How do you like Puerto Rico?”

Puerto Ricans ask me this all the time. It's usually a question rooted in pride in their island, especially for the older ones. I can tell that “You just love it, don't you?!?” is on the tip of their tongues.

Sure, I like Puerto Rico. I like 85 in February and never having to worry about icy roads. I like frappes and festivals and salsa and merengue music blaring from oversized speakers pretty much everywhere. I like waking up with the Caribbean lapping up just beyond my back door. I like exploring and the unpredictability and relaxed pace of island life. I like the creativity afforded me by a job that is directly related to impacting people's lives.

But there's still this big part of my heart that's stuck in Michigan, with its seasons and icy roads and – it's just home for me, and I've been gone for a long time. I can't help but look forward to returning someday.

My life hasn't synched up very well with everyone else's since I graduated from college. I've taken a different path, one with more miles traveled, more debt, less dollars earned. But I have to remind myself – don't take this for granted. These are good years and I'm hardly missing out. Someday, I'll miss the Caribbean and the salsa and jungle waterfalls, and I'll curse the biting wind and cold of Michigan in winter.

Tell ya what, I won't take this for granted if you, wherever and whoever you are, won't take yours for granted.

Scattered thoughts and further reflections on one year:

• I thought I would know Spanish by now. I don't. Learning a language is a long and difficult process.
• Top five frappes, in no particular order: Strawberry Oreo, Banana Oreo, Strawberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Coconut Banana, and Strawberry Kiwi (if the strawberries and kiwis are sweet.)
• I really don't mind public speaking anymore. At least not when I'm flanked by a translator.
• Dreaming and pitching new ideas is fun, but following through is far more difficult.
• I will never stop hating plyometrics, but I'm slowly growing more and more fond of P90X. Thanks, Tony.
• I cannot overstate the impact a package or letter has on me, no matter what's inside it. I've gotten a few from Michigan, one of which had a Tigers playoff towel that I will cherish and enthusiastically wave whenever the Tigers are playing or when I miss baseball, and a few letters from India. All of them were wonderful.
• Nobody is perfect. Not even missionaries.

conTRAculTUra

(props to my brother Jon for the art)

Saturday morning, around 11 am, I boomed out Nicki Minaj's Superbass to a group of 54 high school kids  here at Campamento del Caribe. I then showed them a clip of Sophia Grace Brownlee singing the same song perfectly, belting that catchy chorus just like Ms. Minaj. It was the cutest thing ya ever did see.

But those lyrics... they're kinda nasty. In the very least, they paint an odd picture of what an ideal man should be. (Nicki's take: "He pop bottles... he's always in the air but he never flies coach, he might sell coke") And that's where we took our ensuing discussion. It's just a little weird having a discussion about naughty English lyrics with a group of Spanish speaking kids. Many of them were bobbing their heads and shot their hands in the air when I asked if they knew the words.

Discussing the dangers of pop music officially ushers me into one of the stages of adulthood between "permissibly cool grown-up" and "please stop, Dad, you're embarrassing me." I think the one I'm at the post-plateau coolness plummet. My trajectory is negative, no doubt.

But my own coolness aside, it was all part of our Contracultura retreat.

The point we were trying to get across was: Be different. Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform to the powers of the world, and we wanted to find some cool ways to get that point across to the campers. Part of that was our discussion that morning, dubbed "THE VOICE OF TRUTH." We compared various takes the entertainment industry and media have on subjects like men, women, God, Good and Evil, Success (we never got to sex and relationships, dadgummit) with the Bible. The format worked well - Clip, introduce topic, discuss in small groups, hear from a few groups, look at what the Bible says.

That discussion was one of the hardest things for me to plan - it only came together a few days before the retreat. Also tough: coming up with a name. Julio gets credit for that. He clearly has not plateaued in coolness, as I have. We kicked around a bunch of ideas, almost settling on a few others, until he pitched Contracultura. It was like, "Bingo." And it stuck.

Our high school camps have been really, really encouraging to me. Before the summer, Jon gave me a capacity number, and I looked at the previous summer and said there was no way we'd hit it. And somehow we did. We had a full camp, and the kids had a blast. And the energy at the end of the week was amazing.

So they seemed to carry it over into the retreat this weekend. Good numbers again, up from our last retreat in February. On Saturday night, Julio spoke and gave an invitation, and at least four kids went to talk to their counselors to accept Christ. Praise God for that.

I got to speak Sunday morning. I'm not nervous about that anymore, not here anyway. It helps when you know what you're going to say. And when you speak through a translator, you get a minute to formulate your next thought. Which really disrupts your flow, if you have flow. I am not a person who has flow. I don't think, anyway. But I was glad to get the chance to speak, if only for 20 minutes. It went well - I told an embarrassing story, shared a funny clip, and used a good illustration I learned from Francis Chan.

I really don't like to dwell on numbers, but it's a special thing when camp is full. Once again, parents were dragging their kids away from CdC. God is doing big things here.

I got to leaf through some of our evaluations from the retreat today, and the most common suggestion for improvement: Let us stay longer. The thing they liked the most: The teaching times.

That's why we do these retreats. It's great that they have fun and want to come back, but for them to leave with deeper understanding, strengthened in their walk... That's huge. Pray for those 54 kids, that they really would keep at it, and truly be Contracultura.

Not Just an Event

It's hard when your faith becomes your job.

The other day I was sitting there, just thinking. I do that sometimes, just sit there and zone out as my brain follows some long train of thought. Usually, just on the verge of some brilliant epiphany, I realize I've been sitting there zoning out and I snap out of it. I never reach that epiphany. Just a long string of thought, and often one that doesn't bear any fruit. That's okay. It's how guys defrag their hard-drives.

But as I sat there, I was thinking about my involvement in ministry. How did I get here? Why am I here? Why am I planning to be done with this in a year? How can I put a timeline on this? How am I qualified for this?

Most of us are unqualified, actually.

There are days when I get up and go back to the grindstone. I try to make decisions about new things, wait for people to call me back or email me so I can move forward on a project, or prepare stuff, or try to be creative by myself - am I the only one who sucks at this? Projects and budgets pile up and I stall on making decisions about more abstract things. Why does this feel like work?

We plan retreats, camps, and other events directed at reaching kids, in the hopes that they might go and be disciples. And there's a lot of work that goes into it. From coordinating artwork for a mailing to planning a menu to booking a speaker to updating a database full of names, it's easy to get overwhelmed with tasks.

You start to ask yourself - is this ministry, or is this a job? Couldn't anyone do this stuff? Is my faith really tied into this, or am I just an event planner?

As I was thinking, I started to consider some of the people who inspire me. Ministry doesn't usually look like work to them. They're so sold out to their cause that all they need is the fuel of the Holy Spirit to propel them forward. They run on It. They always love what they're doing so much that they would never dream of backing out of it, right? Why don't I feel that way? Here I am thinking my time here will be done in a year and I'll move onto something else. Why am I not surging happily forward in ministry, energized as though the Holy Spirit was coursing through my veins like caffeine? Shouldn't I love every minute of this?

Yeah, I don't think it happens that way. I think that whole utopian pipedream feel-good thing is a big lie, especially when it comes to ministry. The Bible definitely never paints that picture. Nowhere does Christ say "abandon your family, and it will be smooth sailing." Ministry is hard, and I suspect that the people for whom it appears to be so easy have days of drudgery too. Sometimes it's the work of the Holy Spirit just to get me out of bed and put me back at my desk.

We'll be doing our first men's retreat next month. It's new territory for me. Yesterday, I went to meet with Pastor Miguel, who will be our speaker, to pray about it and work out some of the planning. We prayed, talked, had a few good ideas, and as we wrapped up we prayed again. Though he didn't when we opened, He prayed in English this time, and I was glad because he used a phrase that stuck with me. "May it not be just an event..."

May it not be just an event. I grabbed onto those words and repeated them, rolled them over in my brain. They fit so well.

That is exactly the attitude I need to have.

It's not just an event.

Maria reaches

Yesterday, I pulled the aluminum covers off my windows, protection from the threat of Irene a few weeks ago. She's long gone, and though hurricane season isn't over yet there doesn't appear to be anything upcoming. I want a breeze through my apartment. And Maria - she's heading north of the island, presumably to get lost and fizzle out over the Atlantic.

But ya see, hurricanes and tropical storms have these wings or tentacles that stick out well beyond the eye of the storm. The eye can pass close by, and the storm might not do a whole lot. But those darn tentacles can do damage all over. 

So with Maria cruising up the Atlantic, away from Puerto Rico, I went to sleep with a little drizzle outside of my window. By 1 AM, I felt just a little spray coming in my window. The wind had picked up and the slow, distant rumble of thunder had become decidedly less distant. Now it was flashing and crashing all around. There was a howl - not the freight train people tell me comes along with a real hurricane - as the wind began to blow in a constant. I began to wonder if something was kicking up. Probably, though, it was just a big thunderstorm.

If I had I left the aluminum covers up on my windows, I wouldn't have to worry about any rain getting in. But since I'd taken them down, just a little bit of mist was getting through. Outside the window, they were standing carelessly up against my washer. I got up and closed the shutters tight and laid back down.

A big gust of wind, and

WHAM

The sound was huge and unmistakable. They fell over and started banging and clanging around on the ground as the wind pushed them along the concrete beneath my windows. Roughly five feet from where I was sleeping, just a concrete wall with some tightly closed shutters was between me and them and the storm that pushing them effortlessly around.

I briefly thought I probably ought to go tie them down or something. Then, another crash of thunder.

Nope.

I rolled over and slept until, around 4:30 am, it all kicked up again. And it rained non-stop for several more hours.

When I emerged from my house from my apartment, I was met with this:

There used to be an awning covering the walkway to our dining hall. You can see the poles bent over, not knowing which way they're supposed to point. The thing they held up is way over there resting against that palm tree. On its way there, it roughed up our playground even more than termites and time already had. It needs a replacement. That's not the sound I heard. But you can imagine, that awning weighs several hundred pounds, thrown more than 100 feet.

This was more than just a little thunderstorm. Beware the long reach of Maria.

Anecdotal evidence

Yesterday I got a call from Pastor Gary at Rush Creek Bible Church, the church I grew up in and the one I still consider my "home church," though I've been gone for years, it seems. Since tonight is the Men for Missions Steak Fry, they asked me to come and share a short story about what God has been doing in Puerto Rico. I told him sure, I'd be happy to - After all: Public speaking is no longer a big deal for me. (Sidenote: Public speaking is still a big deal for me.)

And so I immediately started to think about what I would share. I get one story, one anecdote from the summer, and I need to make it count. And as I cycled through my memories from my time so far in Puerto Rico, I started to realize that most of my big impressions have to do with my personal growth. I need to get up in front of these guys and share something about the ministry, a story about where I saw God doing big things in the lives of the kids, counselors, others around the ministry.

And the thing is...

I'm struggling to come up with one.

That doesn't mean God didn't do big things. It just means I didn't see a lot of them firsthand. Maybe there's a disconnect somewhere. I know our counselors have some big things they would share, and I wish they could be here to do it. As a program director, especially in my first year, I spent a lot of time planning, putting out fires, preparing the next thing, processing the last thing, recovering, sweating, cleaning, thinking. And that doesn't leave a lot of time to be actively involved in the present. In other words, not a lot of time in direct heart-to-heart perfect-for-a-story-back-home ministry. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure everything was right for others to do that, but not a whole lot doing that myself.

To some extent, that is the job of the director - you're supposed to make sure that the goals are met, let others handle the tasks. I would be a terrible micromanager. But I still think that somewhere along the way, I would have gotten a pretty good anecdote to share.

There are anecdotes. There are naughty kids, crazy games - and confusing ones, the kid who puked during Fear Factor, the darnedest things kids said, and other summer camp anomalies. Generally, the stuff that goes wrong makes for better stories. It's low-hanging fruit when it comes to reflection. But it doesn't always make for inspiring stuff for the folks back home.

And so I think, in the 2-3 minutes I get, I won't be sharing just one small touching anecdote, but one big one - that we had a good summer, that kids learned that they need to live fearlessly as followers of Christ, that a few made decisions to turn their lives to Him for the first time, and that they had a lot of fun doing it.

And, of course, that nobody got seriously injured in the process.

While home

I wondered if there was going to be significant culture shock being back in Michigan after being in PR for 7 straight months.

I am happy to report: Not really. Not that bad. I've been enjoying the lack of humidity. Michigan in the summer is a good place to be, though everyone tells me it was wicked humid a few weeks ago before I got here.

I have yet to get into Lake Michigan, and enjoy a body of water without salt creeping into all of my nicks and cuts and flavoring my lips.

I've been able to visit my home-away-from-home at Grace Adventures. And in so doing, pitched in at Unityfest where I manned the Gaga pit and did some belaying at the climbing wall before I saw the Newsboys. I almost met them afterward, and would have were it not for the fact that to meet them, ya gotta have some merch in hand for them to sign. Still, great show.

I also saw Willie Nelson in concert, and though that wasn't on my bucket list or anything, and I hadn't planned on it until the day before, you generally don't pass up an opportunity to see a legend in concert, especially when it's free. Willie Nelson, for the record, is short. And downtown Grand Rapids made for an almost-perfect venue on a nearly perfect day.

I shot 9 holes with two good friends yesterday. It my first time on the course in, I think, two years. I might have gotten out once last year. I crushed my first drive and finished with a 50. For the record I cannot remember ever shooting under 50, so I was pleased.

We went over to one of their houses after and watched the Tigers game. I'll be going to at least one and hopefully two while I'm home. This is a good year for them. I can't wait to see them in person again.

I'm trying, at the advice of a friend who has been overseas and come home for a month, not to do too much in the time that I'm home. I need some rest. Some me time. Some get-fed time - I'm going to have to make sure to spend some time in The Word. So this week is primarily an open book, get up when I want, get a little bit of work done - not too much - hit the bicycle to pedal around Jenison.

I've had the chance to answer "how's Puerto Rico?" about 100 times. I have a script in my head now. But being home, being away, gives you a chance to reflect on things in a way that you can't while you're in the thick of it. You only get really good perception after the fact. I added up my hours the other day for the month of July, just thinking about how much I worked. I figure I worked a 70 hour week, an 80 hour week, and a 95 hour week in there. I think I got two real days off that month. And I was wiped out at the end of it. It's no wonder our counselors were too. The hours, though.... That's part of the gig and you can't escape it. By design, summer camp is a crazy, busy season. I think I bankrolled a few days off in that time.

And so now, I'm taking much needed time off with some people I've missed. Just being at home at night, doing nothing... I think that fills me up.

The first leg

...of the marathon.

Yeah, as I'm starting to write this blog, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be one of those life update posts where I don't get on a soapbox or anything. I don't think.

Starting in early June, I started to be busy. Staff training was a few weeks away. Lots of teaching materials to write, lots of schedules to make, details to figure out, people to call, camps to keep marketing. It's weird to have to plan to plan. With all of these details in my head, it's challenging to put this whole mental mess of summer into some kind of sequential, logical gameplan. Especially for a summer you've never seen.

But every summer in camp is one you've never seen, I guess. But that first one, it's a real bugger.

Even as I write all of this, from the lobby of a McDonald's, basically pushed out of camp by those I'm working with to preserve my own sanity, I have about 70 billion little things in my head.

Still gotta plan the games.

Didn't get out the chiquicampa flyers.

Fall retreats aren't that far away and NOT A THING IS DONE FOR THOSE, OHMY-

Stop it.

My brain needs a break. Let it rest. Camp will happen regardless. The big stuff is taken care of. The staff are here. The campers are signed up (around 90 right now, but a lot of them just show up without calling.) The devotional booklets are printed BUT THEY STILL NEED TO BE STAPLED.

I'm learning about delegating responsibility. My first thought with every task is just to do it. I used to feel guilty about delegating. Or at least, nervous about passing stuff off to newbies. Doing everything yourself is never good though. It gets messy. Overwhelming. Stressful.

Especially that last one. If effective delegation were an artform, I'd be a four year-old with finger paints, helplessly hoping to grow into a Picasso.

And so staff training started on Friday. And pretty much since then, I've been running, with this constant noise of to-dos in my head. OHHH, FORGOT ABOUT THE STAFF TRAINING EVALS-

No. Cut that out.

And today is day six. We've covered a lot of ground, and skipped over a lot of ground that, I hope, we'll come back to later. Our staff stays over on the weekends, which means we have some duties on Saturdays as well. Not really a day off in the whole month. So you've gotta pace yourself. If you're not careful, you can crash.

So they kicked me out. And to think, on a night when the Tigers had already played a day game.

The other side of service

Last night I had garbage duty in the dining hall. It's a pretty simple set up, really. You stand behind a table, people come up and drop off their plates, napkins, utensils, cups, and extra food. You sort all of that out so it fits into one garbage bag. Feeding 200 World Changers can lead to lots of bags of garbage if you're not careful.

I'm careful. I'm also good at Tetris, so I'm a pretty good at dropping stuff in place as it comes in. And I was a dishwasher a bunch of years ago, so I'm pretty good at arranging food waste and getting covered in filth. I have a system, and I stick to it. It's more refined than I care to admit.

So garbage duty isn't a big deal to me. I actually like doing it, it's a chance to serve other people and bless them. All they have to do is set their stuff down on the table. I handle everything else. And blessing others blesses me. So I get to stand there with a smile on my face and talk to people as they come up, and I make their life just a tiny bit easier.

Sometimes, though, people ignore the system. Even though I am standing there wearing my gloves and handling everyone else's garbage, they still choose to come up and take care of it themselves. Usually, it's the adults.

They mean well. I know what they're thinking:

"I don't want to be a bother."

"I can do this myself."

"Don't worry, I got this."

They'd hate for some poor missionary guy to have to handle their garbage for them. So they come back behind the table and place their stuff in the wrong bins and get in my way and - come to think of it, steal my blessing.

I am there to serve, but they don't want to be served. They take my service away.

Sometimes people would just rather not be served.

Take footwashing, for example. It's far more awkward and uncomfortable for the person allowing their feet to be washed than for the person doing the washing. Your feet stink, and they sweat, and that's terribly inconvenient for anyone getting close to them. But Jesus did it. Imagine Jesus washing your smelly, nasty feet. Now there's an image for you.

It's uncomfortable to let somebody serve you. It can be uncomfortable to need to be served. "I don't want to be a bother" and "I don't want to be served" are not all that different.

Are you good at letting people serve you?

I'm not. Some people - Christians in particular - are very eager to give, but would rather not receive. After all, we're told 'tis better to give than to receive.

But receiving service is different. After all, becoming a Christian has an awful lot to do with recognizing that you need help.

Sometimes, people genuinely want to serve you.

And there's nothing wrong with allowing someone to serve you. So let them do it. Don't take away their service.

So the next time you see me in the garbage line at CDC, with my hand out...

Don't worry, I got this.

Unichallenge 2011

There was this event.

"It's a big deal," they told me. "People get, like, really into it. This is serious."

I had seen the pictures and I had heard some stories. I knew it on paper but - as with all things camp ministry - I didn't quite know what to expect until I saw the Unichallenge happen.

When I was at Grace, we created Mangames, a half-day competition testing the various aspects of manliness - among them strength, agility, wisdom, creativity, survival skills, the ability to put large quantities of food away in a short amount of time - all to crown the manliest of men on the Grace Adventures summer staff. Mangames saw a second official incarnation last summer and, I'm hoping, a third despite my absence this summer. I dream of international Mangames chapters. Maybe someday. All of that to say: I have a deep appreciation for skills competitions on the grounds of Christian camps.

Unichallenge has been happening here for a few years now. This may have been Unichallenge V, I don't know for sure. But it is far and away the most hyped thing we do. And with great hype comes great responsibility.

The problem with having responsibility for something you've never done before is that you inevitably leave out many, many details that you would never in a million years dream might be necessary. Everything works on paper. We planned our events with a few new ideas, and a few weeks ago got to work building what we needed. We did not leave ourselves adequate time to get certain things done. And so in the days leading up to Unichallenge, I worked some very long hours finishing big and little things, from building rafts and shields to tying up loose ends and picking out trophies. Actually, one event was finished literally minutes before it was put into use.

I don't know how much of this was evident to the participants of Unichallenge. All of our staff, despite all of our stress, sincerely believe that Unichallenge V was a success. People had a blast, and the feedback was all positive.

And this, I think, lends us a poignant example of God doing good and perfect things despite his imperfect servants. It's a beautiful thing that we are not solely responsible for the success or failure of our ministry. God does a marvelous job shoring up our mistakes and failures. Which of course doesn't give us a license to be sloppy, but it does remove some of the pressure to be perfect.

The whole point of this event is to get church groups to come together and compete, yet be unified. The focus is so heavy on sportsmanship that a team can win every event but not win the overall championship. After lunch they all spend time in community, praying, and at the end of the day, we have praise and worship time before we hand out the trophies. If nothing else, it's our hope that some bonds are formed that will last beyond the day, beyond the boundaries of camp, and beyond the life of a trophy.

That, and that there are no serious injuries, of course.

Pictures: (All from the opening presentation ceremony. None from actual competition.)

More cowbell

Monday, blessed Monday.

I must have the greatest job in the world. I get Monday off. I get tomorrow, my birthday, off as well. Today, I cleaned. Tomorrow, I chill. That is a worthy reward for working the weekend.

This was a weekend I'd been thinking about and looking forward to and planning for months, all without having any idea what it was going to look like. I knew just little enough to have an excuse for it to tank, but had just enough responsibility to feel some ownership for it. It's a weird position to be someone new in an ongoing ministry with all of its traditions, patterns, relationships, and unwritten rules. They bring you in with fresh eyes, to improve things and make changes and see it like they don't. But you have to be a spectator for a while - after all, some things are untouchable.

This weekend was our 9-12 year old February Retreat. It needs a better name than that, I know. We did our marketing, mailed out lots of brochures and hung posters all over the place. A few signed up ahead of time, many didn't. That's an ongoing challenge here - you never know just how many are going to show up. As of Friday, we had 15 or 16 on the list, guessing that "maybe 30?" might come. By 8:00 Friday night, there were 32 or 33 kids here, which was just a hair above my lofty expectations of "maybe 30?"

That's enough to make traditional camp large-group games fun and have a diverse bunch. Enough to drown out my amateur guitaring in chapel and to make defending in Gold Rush a challenge.

Highlights:

- Kids asking me again and again for Mosquito tag. They would just come up and demand more Mosquito. Come to think of it, all the games seemed to go over pretty well. Oh, and kids cheated. But whatcanyado?

- Francisco telling me he learned English from Cable TV. I didn't realize how effective that was.

- It is never not funny to wake kids up with a cowbell. Ever. My quote: "I've got a prescription.... Dang it, I messed the line up. I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell." Cue Julio on cowbell, mostly right in kids faces.

- Kids had fun, heard about Jesus, and no one got seriously hurt. That sums up a successful retreat fairly well, I'd say.

Lowlights:

-Me picking the same girl, with the unpronounceable name (for me, anyway), twice as a demonstration for mosquito tag. Went something like this:
"You have to say their name three times while giving a double high-five to a partner over their head. What's your name?"
"Uluaualsamar" (or something)
[long pause]
"Okay, Ulaammaman, Ulauslubauar, hem-mm-hmm-mmm-mmr."

-My fingertips dying a slow death at the hands of the rusting strings on my guitar. I haven't played it regularly in months, so the ever-important callouses are kaput. Which leaves my tender fingers raw and hurty today.

What is going on here? This might have been Bible Study. I'm not sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiYL0zQjPSY

Ministering in Culture Shock

Over the weekend, we had scheduled a service retreat for college aged kids to come, serve, and pitch in by helping some people in the barrio.

had.

scheduled.

This was to be my first sponsored program, my first gig on staff. I wouldn't really be running the show, but it was still a big deal because I hadn't seen us put on a retreat yet.

The week leading up to it, I asked Teresa if we knew how many people would come, but nobody had RSVP'd yet. That's typical, she told me, people usually don't RSVP but they show up anyway. So we made our preparations - booked a band, assigned times to speak, lined up some projects in the barrio. The cooks bought food. And Friday came.

From whenst this feedback came, I'm not sure, but I think it was largely through Facebook and word of mouth that we discovered "Lots of people have finals can't make it. A few said next weekend would be better."

Oh really. Huh. How many do we know for sure are planning on coming?

One. For sure. And the band.

Sooooo.... We maaaaay have a lot of people, we may not. Our team put our ears to the ground, er, phone, and did some digging. Lots of calls were made and a conveniently consistent picture was painted that if we moved the retreat to next weekend, people would come. And maybe bring friends. Hopefully bring friends.

Gametime-decision.

We decided to hold off. We made more phone calls, sent a Facebook message (how did anyone get the word out about anything before Facebook?) and an email. We canceled with the band, and put off the work projects. As for anyone who didn't get the memo and showed up anyway, they would learn a valuable lesson about the importance of RSVPing, particularly for service retreats.

In the end, one person came that night (not the one we knew about before), took the news pretty well as I understand it, and just went home with a little extra free time. We lost our band, and we need to find a new one, and soon. There will still be yards in need of cleanup and fences in need of painting this weekend. And we'll be there, ready to serve.

On Friday, when this whole thing went down, I wasn't really shaken by it. I'm usually pretty steady and chill, unless there's a microphone in front of me. I assume that displacing a retreat in the states would probably take an awful lot more string-pulling and rearranging. People plan more. College kids have too much going on. High school kids - actually, all kids - have soccer and ballet and band and debate and winter ball and theater and tutors and all kinds of other stuff. They have some of that here in Puerto Rico. But there are far fewer pieces to rearrange here. It's more laid back, more chill. Like me. In that sense, we fit each other quite nicely. People tend to deal with things as they arise, which means they often wait until the last second for things, as well. I'm guilty on that one, too.

And yet, this poses some serious challenges for long-term as well as short-term planning. Not every retreat will be so easy to reschedule. We can't always allow our plans to align with the uncommitted, and we can't always hope the plans of the uncommitted fall our way. This is one of the clear challenges of ministering in culture shock.

When I figure out how to handle that, I'll let you know.



Tonight's sunset, put to two different musical styles: