Classic Soul.

Can I just rave about how awesome my job is once again...I don't really have a life outside of it right now so it's really all I have to talk about. Seriously, my job is sooooo sick. Sickity sick. Like so sick that no medication could tame this ailment.

This week is legit. Session 1. Week 3. These kids have sooooo much energy. It's surreal. It's our smallest group yet, but numbers have absolutely no effect on the amplitude of the environment. It's magical. This is what I live for. Eeeyayahhhh.

I filmed club last night from the catwalk above and I wish I had the right to post a clip of what I caught. 600 kids waving their arms in perfect unison to Train's Hey Soul Sister. Seriously, magical.

This morning's event was field games. Field games culminating in a crud war. My highlights of this event include, but are not limited to, Dizzy Bat bails and getting slapped upside the head with indistinguishable wet slop. I get to be a camper every weeeeeek. Gaaahhhhhhh. So fun.

I must admit, I was terrified before summer started. So many qualms. So much apprehension. I'd never done anything video...aside from the Bryner wedding just a couple weeks prior to the shotgun start of summer. I was expecting to fail...when you expect the worst, you get a pleasant surprise when things settle in nicely. Right?

My pockets really aren't deep enough to hold all the kind words, the affirmations, the encouragements that are fluttering down upon me. I've been showered with so many "you're doing such a great job"s, "I'm so impressed"s, "I can't believe you've never done this before"s. Praise be to God...thanks Jesus for using me in such a fun and enchanting way. I sit and revel in the mighty ways God is at work.

My heart is changing. My life is changing. With confidence continuously stacking up in my basket, I'm learning how to believe in myself like I never have before. I am capable.

With every day that passes, I get more and more excited about my adventures of the future. In three months I'm moving back to Santa Barbara. Moving back to Santa Barbara to be without shelter. I think I'll be starting a new blog once I arrive. One that captures all the moments of uncertainty. The moments under the stars. The moments with strangers, stacking bricks on this faithful foundation. I want to seek God in a raw and vulnerable state. I want to get away from comfort and dive into deep caverns of uneasiness. And amidst the vagrancy, I'll be planning my year long road trip.

I think I've scrapped the PCT dream. Momentarily. Perhaps I'll hike it with my husband one day, but for now I'm about marathons and trippin' on road. I've talked to you guys a lot about this wild dream of mine. This wild dream to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 weeks. Well, I continue to be prayerful about it and I think that with working 3, possibly 4, jobs for 8 months to a year, I'll have the cash flow saved up to support this endeavor. That's not to say that I'm not going to seek sponsors and raise awareness about what I'm running for.

Every Sunday is race day. During the week, meaning every day but raceday, I'll be volunteering myself alllll ovvverrrr the country. Part of my planning will involve calling up all kindsa organizations asking if I can be of service. I think I'm going to take a public speaking class at city college so I can start speaking at different events and conventions and such. Everyday I'm learning how to be more comfortable with sharing my story and all I really want to do is be a portal, transporting children, children of addiction, into a place where they can experience the raw and abundant love of Christ. I want to get tons of neon tanks screen-printed with Livin' Lyfe Loudly in big black letters on the front...with Breakin' the Cycle Proudly on the back.

We're bout to get rull deep and rull sullen right now.

At camp this session they've been doing life signs. Five people from the assignment team throw themselves back in time and share what they were like back in high school. It's super powerful and as if that wasn't enough, the kids are shown a PostSecret video and encouraged to scrawl their own secret on a 3 x 5 card and throw it into the outgoing mail box. The cards are then photographed and a slideshow is played at the next life signs session. At the last life signs, there's cardboard testimonies in which all the leaders put a simple phrase of how they felt before they met the Lord and then they flip it over to show who they are now in Christ. It's soooooooo powerful. Then the speaker, Bill Paige, pulls out a cross with all the kids secrets nailed to it.

All this to say, that reading over these cards the past couple weeks has broken my heart and opened my eyes. It's unreal how many high school kids have attempted or have contemplated suicide. How many kids have used sex, drugs, and alcohol to cope with the loneliness. How many kids were raped, abused, emotionally traumatized. How many kids hate their parents. How many kids hate the world. How many kids cut themselves, burn themselves. How many kids feel ugly, unworthy, not good enough. I can see myself in the pretend faces these kids put on. I desperately want to run around the country testifying against the enemy.

And so I dream as days go by, dream about life after the canyon.

But as often as I dream, I continue to float back to the present. I'm only in this place for a brief time now and I want to absorb all that I can. As I often as I think about the future, I can't wrap my mind around life without this community, life without these skyscapes, life without camp.

So I sit in my suite and think about seasons. Seasons of life. Seasons of love. Dancing with hazy lazy absolute delight in Jesus Christ Himself.