From the First Teen Week

From Monday morning, I was pretty certain that each of the nine girls in my cabin were leaders, "Gamma Girls" as one article calls them: young women who do not need the approval of their peers to know and do what is right; they are happy, interesting, busy, involved. They are less susceptible to peer pressure due to their own self-control and inner contentment.

All nine girls led the way in everything. We danced, we laughed, we had generally the best week of my life. They loved worship time and decided to be the last ones dismissed each night if we could do it.

During my last one-on-one time late Friday night, we walked around the main camp area. Aubrey had not spoken much of her own accord throughout the week. She mostly relied on her best friend Kari who was also in the cabin. But when we were alone, she finally had a million questions. She wondered about Satan and his fall from heaven (a strange, sticky story, if you ask me); she wondered how she could be right with God. She had kept all her precious thoughts to herself all week. Many of her questions had been addressed during our evening services or during our cabin discussions. But the answers had gone over her head.

I tried to bring the gospel down from its lofty heights to the very ground we were now sitting on. Every time I explain God's love for us in Jesus, I get butterflies. The concepts of grace and justice and forgiveness had been fluttering over my head, too. And when I finally took them down to hold them, they became dear and real again.

Aubrey recommitted her life to Jesus on Friday night. She wants her Sin to be Forgiven. She had asked Jesus into her life before, but she has not been discipled in the interim, and she didn't understand anymore. I wish I could say that my head wasn't drooping before the end of our conversation. She had so much more to tell me. She is a writer. She's in the midst of authoring a mystery novel. She is an adventurer. She is not afraid of anything the ropes course can throw at her, she is not afraid of new places, of new people. She loves to tell stories. She loves to be in theater.