Young Life

Tonight I had my second Young Life club and I thought it would be nice to explain exactly what this whole YL thing is.

When I was fifteen my best friend Summer was really involved in an organization called Young Life. When I started dating Zack, he went to YL too and they both talked me into going. I was scared it was going to be some weird cult thing, or some Bible beating Christians that were totally close-minded. Well it turns out I was totally wrong!

The way YL club goes is there are adult leaders that range from 18 to like their forties who "lead" and high school kids who attend club. Back in "my day" we met at someone's house and squeezed into someone's den. There'd be announcements, singing silly songs or songs that you could hear on the radio, someone would be playing the guitar while we all sang, funny games or skits, and then we sing like one devotional song. Then a leader goes up and gives their testimony, usually just telling a story about their life and somehow connecting it to something about Jesus or a story from the Bible and then the whole meeting ends with a prayer.

I think that being in high school, believing in God or loving Jesus was a really taboo thing to do. You weren't cool, because how can anyone have fun if they are worried about sinning all the time?! But really YL taught me a different perspective. For me in high school YL just brought me a ton of peace- it made me realize that other people my age were curious about God, too, that it was OK to be questioning everything you had been told before about faith.

When we were in high school Zack (super hot Marine boyfriend and love of my life) and I would always talk about how we would SO be YL leaders when we "grew up." Well growing up took me to Northern California AKA atheist capital of the world and Zack to Marine Corps land AKA San Diego, North Carolina, and Iraq. Well, now I'm out of school and Zack is coming back to the US. As soon as I graduated I got in contact with the right people and here I am! I am going to be a leader for the Hamilton group, a new group for kids that go to my old high school. My coleader will be Melinda, a super nice girl and we are already becoming fast friends. We are going to be the "old" leaders-- we are only TWENTY ONE!!!! Yikes! There will be like six other leaders who will be like eighteen so that will be fun lol.

Anyways I am super excited. My favorite YL leader, Shanda, had a HUGE impact on my life. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't have stuck around with YL, I wouldn't have made some important personal decisions when I was younger that I am so grateful for now. She truly was a role model in a time when I didn't have many available. I hope and pray that I can maybe have half of the impact on my YL kids that she had on me. With Zack coming home to join in and help out, too, I know that he will be a big hit with all the guys.

The absolute BEST part of YL is camp. There is winter camp that is a weekend at a special YL camp in Las Canyon and an eight day summer camp there too. It's the BEST. Cabins with bunk beds that have awesome, clean bedding, giant bathrooms that are cleaned every day (if you know me, clealiness is definitely next to godliness to me) the best food ever made by chefs, woods, lake, dune buggy racing (I flipped mine last time haha it was scary!) a zip line that goes into the lake, ropes course, horses, swimming pools with slides, food fights, obstacle courses, a coffee shop, ice cream shop, a bead shop, and so much more! And every night, you got it, we talk about God and Jesus and all that good stuff. And then the rest of the day it's just awesome fun times that you'll never forget!

Anyways, world, that's Young Life. I'm not a mushy, lovey-dovey, Bible beating Christian or missionary type person. But I love this organization. It's especially awesome to me because I spend so much time arguing about religion, being a theology major and now having a degree in it, that it's nice just to talk about my own faith instead of arguing all the other stuff (that I still love to talk about) like translations, time periods, culture and society, and other controversial stuff that are great for my career and when I'm waxing philosophical but not so much when I'm considering the state of my spirit :)