And the emotional roller coaster Of Encounter begins. Today was a powerful day. I'm not going to say much about the first two classes, simply because the third class was the one that stuck with me the most, and is still on my mind.
The first class we went to was called Bare Necessities. Basically the point of this class was that we don't need to wear all these different layers, such as pride, envy, jealousy, etc. And we just need to get down to the bare necessities of life: Jesus. He's all we need.
The second class we went to was called Bungalows for Vagabonds. That was also a really good class. Earth is not our permanent home. "This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through" you know, the church song. Heaven is our home, we are just wanderers here on this earth. And we are to help others find their way home.
Okay. The third class we went to was called Relationships. There were giant jenga towers and on each block there was an adjective. There were positive words and there were negative words. We were to try to only take the qualities that we wanted in a relationship, such as loyalty, respect, positiveness, etc. Well we were doing really good, and all the sudden this guy from another group comes and joins us. At first he just watches. Then he starts trying to help, which is totally fine, but he was just ripping the blocks out, like he was TRYING to knock it over. You could tell he was a bit off. We had seen him around camp this whole week, and so we knew he had to be. But we were nice to him and we let him play with us. He eventually ended up knocking our tower down and moving on to the next group. He actually went to every group I'm pretty sure. Soon after each group had played at least once, we started hearing voices from the speakers. They were conversations, and they were about that kid who went around to each group. They were saying stuff like, "Why does that guy have a fanny pack?" or "Why is he annoying us?" And that moment was when it hit me: He was faking it, it was part of the class. His name was Garret. His youth minister asked him if he wanted to help with his class, and he paid for him to come and everything. Garret's job was to be as annoying as possible. He would squirt people with a water gun, interrupt conversations, ruin the jenga game, stuff that would make people so annoyed with him. I remember watching him in one group, and this girl got so mad at him for butting into their jenga game, and she just yelled at him to stop it. After the teacher explained everything, Garret got up and talked to us. He told us that this was probably the hardest thing he's ever done. He said he wanted to quit after the first day. He gets breaks from acting this way when he's with his youth group or in the dorm, but doing this every day for the majority of the day? That takes strength. And bravery. And patience. I can't even imagine doing what he's doing. This class was like a slap in the face to me. We need to watch how we treat people. Because who knows what's going on in their life, and how even a simple word can change someone's day, whether it be for the better or for the worse. That class has been the most impactful to me this week so far. So just remember: Don't treat people rudely just because they're different. Even if they are annoying the heck out of you, what would Jesus do? (Yes, that's cliche, but it's true).
The song I chose for today isn't a song we sang in worship. As I was sitting here thinking about what to write, a song came on Pandora and the light bulb went off. Casting Crowns has a song called "Does Anybody Hear Her?" and I think that song could fit perfectly in with this post. If you haven't heard the song, go listen to it. It's one of my favorites.
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