This week, I had the privilege of taking a true 'week off' in Buena Vista, Colorado to go to a retreat with my ministry from K-State. Although I think I could sleep for the next ten weeks and not be rested from that, and my duffel bag smells like a combination of sweat and farm animals, the reflection that has come from the last week has made me feel very, very blessed to find the family that I did.
We started our week with three of our four cars leaving Manhattan mid afternoon on Friday.. and making less than an hour before Emma blew a tire. We stopped in Salina for a new one, and thankfully, were back on the road after relatively short wait at the tire center at Wal-Mart. I sincerely could not have been more thankful for Isaac, Ben, and Ryan's knowledge and ability to get us back on the road quickly. Soon, we were back on the road, stopping for dinner in Hays, and arriving at our hotel in Denver around 11 to unpack and send the boys to their dwelling for the weekend at Jeremy's sister's apartment.
Five o'clock came incredibly early the next morning as we met at the apartment where the boys were staying to eat breakfast and pack the cars to go to Loveland to ski. Breakfast sandwiches flew across the room as they came out of the microwave, hitting someone in the head occasionally to wake them up. Orange Juice was passed around, and we soon packed the car and headed for Loveland - only stopping once when the cooler in Jared's truck tipped over and gave a miniature Niagara Falls affect out of the bed. I had never been skiing before and could feel myself getting more nervous as the traffic got heavier and more and more cars had skis or boards on top of them.
As I got my boots and skis on, and sort of waddled and slid towards the lift on the bunny slopes. Snow, coats, and bundling up are not my forte and I felt beyond out of place. To put it lightly, skiing was not my thing, and I didn't do much of it that afternoon. My friends were more than patient with me during that morning as I learned how to move, and mostly learned by falling. They helped me up each time and never mentioned (at least in front of me) that I was clearly the rookie of the team - but made sure that I was never somewhere where I shouldn't be by myself. That night we went back to the hotel, all got through the shower, and drove to the apartment where the boys were staying and had already put lasagna in the oven ready for dinner. We all crammed into the living room, decorated with Christmas lights and not made for more than five people, trying to find a position comfortable to sit in after a day of skiing. The room soon filled with the smell of warm food from the kitchen (I felt like my body was never going to fully warm up) and one of the guys stopped pray and two pans of lasagna, a salad, a a bowl of corn were gone in a matter of minutes.
When we arrived at Frontier Ranch in the late afternoon on Sunday night, I was flooded with memories from my first time there. As Kaley and I unpacked and waited for the rest of our group, I thought about all the things I learned last year - I have over ten pages of notes in my journal, but I learned a lot about community too, and how lucky I was to find Christian Challenge.
When I came to K-State, I first started at a different ministry ... that I'm really not sure I would call a ministry, if I had to define it now. I definitely was not accepted for who I was and who I wanted to be, and they questioned my life and priorities - the few things in my life that I felt like made sense at that time. Looking back, I feel like I got out just in time, but then still felt like I was one person roaming around a campus of 25,000. I was working through the loss of one friend to murder and a family friend to sickness, and I consistently wondered, who would take me and all this baggage? In January, a friend invited me to Christian Challenge, and the first time I went I knew I found my answer.
Between January of my freshman year and March of my sophomore year, I found friends in Challenge and even got up the nerve to join a bible study. Somehow, I found that I had the desire to go to Colorado for their annual retreat over spring break, something way out of my comfort zone, and I ended up going only knowing my life group leader and was blessed to get to know Hannah, another girl in my life group, as she became one of my best friends over the next few months. After Summit, I applied to lead a life group (looking back I'm really not sure what my thought process other than that it was God directing my feet each day to find the application, fill it out, and turn it in - I certainly lacked the desire and confidence) - and now, I find myself completely at home with Christian Challenge.
While at Summit and with my Challenge family, I find few places on this earth where I'm more comfortable. At Summit one of my favorite things is watching people dance into the dining hall and having to scream to introduce myself at whoever happens to be sitting at my table, which is okay, because they're family anyway. I love that no matter what outfit you're wearing, regardless of how hideous it is by society's standards, if it involves chacos or flannel, it's okay. I love worshipping with 300 of my closest friends, and then turning around and playing the most violent and bruise worthy game of volleyball I've ever played in my life. I love the way that this family is so eager to help, encourage, and love one another in any way possible.
I really can't thank my Challenge family enough for their love over the past two years - I already know that when I graduate in a year, Challenge will be what I miss the most. I've loved getting to know people on such a true and deep level. This year when I started leading a bible study and I was put onto a ministry team (a group of other leaders who meet with a staff member once a week to have an opportunity to connect, share, and work together to discuss how leading is going.) I felt incredibly undeserved of the company I found myself in. By mid-year, we were in the midst of sharing our 'stories' with each other and I found myself telling my 'story' of the first time about losing a friend to murder, a close family friend five months later, and moving to college and trying to pick up the pieces of my life. My friends sat patiently around the room, some with tears in their eyes, as they waited for me to finish - and then they began to ask questions that I realized I had been needing to answer for months.
This year as I went back to Summit, completely comfortable with being away from home, I loved being surrounded by 'my people'. The people who fully consider bananagrams and Nertz olympic games, who wear Chacos in the snow, who 'dance' for things to get them back from the lost and found. - The people who I know will love me and accept me for whatever life brings - but challenge me to continue to be better every day, and who would no less than expect me to do the same for them.
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