Perseverance builds stronger community

So, sometimes when you think everything is going right and ahead of schedule...things change. That is what happened from day 1 of this new week as the morning began with a car accident wrecking our company car! It was a disaster, but luckily no one was hurt and then the church immediately stepped in to help us out because we needed to still pick up our groceries. So while we were still shaken up the new groups arrived and I immediately felt like I was going to connect with this group more. Well all went well until the 2nd day one of the vans got broken into; we were shocked and felt as if we could not get a break. It was like there were forces working against us that knew we would be having an amazing God filled week. Sure enough we worked through every trial that approached us and now I feel closest with this group than groups in the past. 

Everything was going well until we got the adult leaders in on a prank. You see the St. Louis site is rather into pranking each other, but we took it a step too far by scheming with adult leaders. We ended up seriously freaking out some of the youth and having to have a meeting about it. This was one of the biggest trials we had to face because we wondered how much trouble we would get in for it. Luckily it ended up just being a learning experience for us to never try and prank high school students. Advice for anyone running missions trips: don't prank the participants even when you think they'll take everything 100% well; because often times ones intentions are not the same as one comes off. 

We were afraid this trial would cause the youth to lose their trust in us. I thought that some of the youth wouldn't even want to talk to us. But by the end of the night many of the youth were thanking us for everything from the week and sharing funny stories of pranks gone wrong. To further show our forgiveness we received everything went well on our Thursday plans and the foot washing service went exceptionally well. In the end we as a staff were closer and the groups all seemed more unified.

 This week has shown the importance of perseverance through the storm and how when done in the presence of others trials build community. Authentic community. At the end of the day the 3 other staff I work with are my summer family; for better or for worse we are sticking together till the end. That is the beauty of communal living.