History was made today

I walk back into my classroom today after everyone has left for the buses and find 71 junior high kids (3 boys!) sitting on my floor in a circle. My room is big and wonderful but these kids are crammed in from wall to wall and Junior High girls are loud, especially at the end of school when they're with all their friends in a small space and my huge room suddenly feels very small. Then they all turned and just looked at me.

Today was the comeback of the Friendship Bracelet Club. To give you some perspective- last year at our call out meeting we had 27 girls and ended with about 18 regular attendees. I loved meeting every Thursday and those girls were a huge part of my year. Today the sign-up list had 88 names and 71 kids came today. The ones that were missing are still in season for cross country or volleyball or finishing baby-sitting jobs and will joining us when they can.

So part of me is flipping out excited because 71 kids want to be in the FBC and that's awesome and we're going to have so much fun and talk about real things and make new friends and of course make really beautiful friendship bracelets. But part of me is flipping out because that's 71 kids and I'm only 1 person and how in the world do I handle that?

Good thing I've been a camp counselor forever so I can switch into that energetic mode for this many people, basically like leading Pathfinder Pow-wow. Thank goodness I've been a CILT counselor forever so I could coach my 11 returning girls on adopting a small group of new girls and making them feel welcome and cutting string for each of them and teaching them how to make a diagonal stripe on a hardcore. I was so impressed with those girls as they took on their "leader" role. They loved being in charge and helping the new kids have fun.

They all repeated the FBC Creed which includes lines like, "I promise to give away all the friendship bracelets I make because they're friendship bracelets and not yourself bracelets, I promise not to work on bracelets in class, I promise to be nice because if I'm not nice I might be asked to leave." I love creeds. Then the bracelet making began. I was able to walk around to interact with the different groups and they were awesome. These girls, yes the boys too, were making impressive 6 string diagonal stripes.

For 75 minutes today we made history- a friendship bracelet club that is bigger than our school football team. We were 71 TSwift-singing, new people-meeting, 4-knot-tying, circle-talking, name-learning, loud-laughing, and patiently-helping kind of friends.

This got me thinking today

"What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what gets you out of bed in the mornings, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."
- Pedro Arrupe

I think Pedro's got it right that what you are in love with affects EVERYTHING in your life. I hope that the life you're living is one you are proud of.

Sunday

Saturday I didn't really see anyone. I slept a wonderful amount and collaged and wrote letters and watched TLC which inspired me to bake cupcakes and ran for awhile and facebooked a lot of camp videos. All of those are really fun things that I like to do but Saturday just wasn't as good as Sunday.


Sunday I saw a lot of people I love and it was wonderful.

I got to eat breakfast with Racher. I miss the routine of seeing her everyday and knowing that she's only a cabin away. She knows who I am and loves me unconditionally. She gives so much of her energy and time to her friends. I loved that for at least an hour today we got to eat bagels and talk about life- the good and the bad.

I met with my friend Alli for lunch. She is a Junior at a Catholic HS and I loved talking to her about her faith and how it's changed as she has grown up and how her family and school and camp have all made an impact. Alli is so self-aware and articulate. This talk reminded me of the talks we had this summer at camp. I love hearing her perspective on things.

The girls from Sarah's Young Life cabin this summer came over this afternoon to hang out.

These girls are loud and funny and figuring out who they are and fun and I'm always impressed by how much Sarah loves them everyday for who they are and by being a dependable part of their lives.

Usually I don't like technology because I think it gets in the way of real life but I think Skype is a great invention. Today I got to Skype with my friend Annie.

This girl is someone everyone needs to meet. She was just asked to be a Young Life student leader in her area. She decided to do it about a week ago and told me, "It's a big time commitment but I think it's the next step. I can't do sports but I can lead people to God." Annie used to be really involved with sports but because of an ACL surgery her life has changed and I know that God has great plans for her. At church tonight we sang that we would have "selfless faith." I think Annie's life is a picture of that.

I went to Common Ground with my friend Sarah and Molly and Colleen met us there.
The sermon tonight was the WHY behind everything we do at church. The bottom line to everything was that, "we gather corporately to meet with a God who is eager to meet with us." Whether that's in a pew on Sunday morning, over coffee at Starbucks, praying over dinner, singing at chapel, meeting for Campaigners, or sitting in a circle at devotions it matters that we're encouraging one another to come to this God that wants to meet with us.

A wise friend once told me that you need only to surround yourself with people that help you be the best version of yourself and that you can do the same for them. I hope that you are finding those people in your life.

Today:

1. A student brought in a paper that was missing a sizable chunk. Her dog ate it.

2. A student pulled out a packet of noodles from Easy Mac and then distributed them for all of us to eat. Everyone wanted some dry noodles to crunch on.

3. "Our friendship is tighter than the Jo Bros pants" appeared on my student's project.

Hip Hip Wyld Life

Today I got to hang out with my friend Molly. We made these giant chocolate chip cookies which may or may not have an extra cup of chocoate chips in them.



After beginning collages (it takes a long time to find really good magazine pieces- we'll finish them later) we went to Chipotle to get a burrito bowl. Molly is fun and creative and kind and I'm glad I got to spend time with her today.



Wyld Life kicked off tonight with a Jello War. 90 Carmel middle schoolers came prepared with their tupperware and baggies full of jello. Jake is explaining that in the next game these two kids are going to be bobbing for real earthworms in bowls of jello. Can you tell this girl is pumped?



The war is pretty much a free for all. Jello is hurled through the air. I had multiple flavors in my air and countless colors across the rest of me. After you through the Jello it lands in chunks on the ground so we were running around yelling, "RECYCLE THE JELLO" and collecting to keep throwing. So fun.

These are my friends Ellyn and Natalie. Ellyn and I first met at camp, she has been coming to Young Life for a year, and is going to be a Wyld Life leader this year. Natalie is a proud member of the FBC and I was so excited she came to club tonight.

Social Experiment

Inspired by my friend Fitzie and her similar social experiments with the Ojibwa girls I though I'd try one out today at school. I have this white board outside my door and every day is a new quote or riddle or countdown but today I wrote:



Really it's not her birthday at all. She's a teacher down the hall who makes me laugh and loves books and teaching and being kind of ridiculous all the time. The bell rang, the kids filed into the school, and the experiment began.

Only 30 minutes later she emailed me telling me it wasn't her birthday.
An hour later she told me that I was crazy.
Between 2nd and 3rd hour I could her yelling in the hallway, "IT ISN'T MY BIRTHDAY!"
Then at the start of 3rd she came to my room and tried to get my kids to sing Happy Birthday to me but they weren't buying into her reverse-ploy. She told me she was going to "get me back" and I tried to explain to her, "This is a good thing- don't you want to have TWO birthdays?" She said no but all the kids nodded that yes, they would love to have two birthdays. I adviced to stop e-mailing back every single person to tell them it wasn't her birthday and to just enjoy all the extra love and attention.

She walked out the door and immediatly my kids asked if they could give her presents. We compromised and decided to spend 5 minutes making birthday cards. After all, this is composition class and learning to write a birthday card is imperative to their education.

During passing period the birthday mafia all walked to Mrs. Craig's room together to deliver the cards. Still resisting the pseudo-birthday she dumped their Crayola artwork into the recycling bin. (Insert gasp here.)

As far as I know people continued to tell her Happy Birthday the rest of the day and she got a pencil as a gift from one innocent 7th grade boy.

Secretly, I think she loved the whole thing.

"Oh gosh- what's going on over there!"

"We create because we were made to create, having been made in the image of God, whose first role was Creator. He was and is a million different things, but in the beginning, he was a creator. That means something for us, I think. We were made to be the things that he is: forgivers, redeemers, second chance-givers, truth-tellers, hope-bringers. And we were certainly, absolutely, made to be creators."



I LOVE to make stuff. When I'm at camp I wish I could teach all craft clinics. At school my students decorate their poems and design Starbucks cup. I wish I could sneak into the art room on my prep period. I color the envelopes of all the letters I mail. Next week will be the 2nd year kick-off of the friendship bracelet club- scheduled time every week for peacocks, diamonds, and 5-braids. I quilt with Mom and collage with Dom and take pictures with Sar and write with Casey.

Tonight this living room has become the craft room. Sarah brilliantly came up with the plan for all the roommates to craft "S"s in our own styles.





Jenna is working on one of her famous masterpeices for our wall of art from friends. (feel free to contribute your own artwork)



I remember during one of my field placements with a 2nd grade class in Holland I went to art with them one day and we got to fingerpaint. We were swirling and mixing and it was a wonderful escape from college papers and lesson planning. As we were about to leave the art teacher stopped by me and said, "Art is good for the soul."



"Get up. Create like you're training for a marathon, methodically, day by day. Learn your tricks, find a friend, leave the dirty dishes in the sink for awhile. This is your chance to become what you believe deep in your secret heart you might be. You are an artist, a guide, a prophet. You are a storyteller, a visionary, the Pied Piper himself. Do the work, learn the skills, and make art, because of what the act of creation will create in you." -Shauna Neiquist, Bittersweet (yes, again. I really love this book)