Finding The Wins

After returning from an exhausting week-long trip, it is easy to remember the negatives.  To sit and think back on what didn’t go as planned, or what you could have done more effectively.  While this is an essential part of debriefing a trip, I would argue that it is important to take time and remember the “wins” first.  Think back to the positive things and the reasons that you do trips like this.  Because it can be very easy to forget about them in the midst of all the negativity.

It is for this reason that I will take this post as an opportunity to think through the wins of our week-long trip to Mexico.

• Multiple generations (ages 15-71) work alongside each other as they built a house for the Navarro family.
• Father/son and mother/daughter teams.
• A student who does not live in the area during the school-year join the group and was welcomed by everyone.  Wound up being one of the core figures on this trip.
• Experienced workers coaching teens on the build process and the little things (being more effective with a hammer stroke, how to stucco, etc.)
• People taking time out of the busy work-day to jump rope or piggyback little children.
• First-time small group leader doing a great job leading his group and also pointing out where he did well / where he can improve.
• Youth intern giving his first spiritual teaching ever.
• The local pastor being surrounding by people after he finished talking to us because people wanted to know more about him and his life.
• The 5 year-old boy who worked with us so that he could help build his own house.
• Friendships that likely would not have happened at home being initiated on this trip.
• Staying up late talking with multiple students every night because I would not have gotten to know them as well without that time.
• Students who have been on 2 different mission trips (domestic and international) articulate the differences of them and how they are both necessary.
• Students talking about one of the teachings through the rest of the week.
• One adult’s anticipation the entire week for the final teaching (and the fact that it spread to others).
• Students asking if we as a church can keep in touch with the family and visit them while on our trip next year.

And now for some pictures from the week…

  

Life’s A Changin’

 

It has been a bit since I have posted, and I realized that I have yet to post about the big changes in Whitney and my life.  In case you have not heard (or could not tell from the picture above), we are having a baby!  Both Whitney and I are very excited for this addition to our family.

Let me answer the questions that are frequently asked:

How is Whitney feeling?  Whitney has been doing great actually.  She has been a lot more tired than usual, especially when she gets home from work.  She went through a period of feeling nauseous in the first trimester, but that faded.  And she never actually got sick (knock on wood), which she is very happy about.  Her most recent thing is that she has been feeling little #babystarksen (yes, that’s our working title for now) move around inside of her the past couple of weeks.  A very exciting thing for the mother-to-be that helps her connect with it.

Will you find out about the sex? Yes.  In fact this afternoon is our ultrasound!  But we are going to do it a little different than normal, so we won’t know today.  We are having the doctor write it and put it in an envelope for us.  We will then go to a store this weekend and pick out a boy and girl outfit.  When we go to the register we will give the person the envelope and ask them to wrap up and charge us for whichever one is in the envelope.  Then next weekend mine and Whitney’s family are gathering and we will open it up together to find out what it is.  So I should have an update in a little over a week.

Are you guys going to live in that apartment?  Still figuring out what this will mean for our living situation.  We plan to live there until we outgrow it.  But who knows how quick that will come.

How are you feeling, Noah? This has been an interesting question for me to answer.  I have just felt like I am living in ignorant bliss.  I am so excited for everything to come, and all that I can think about are the memories that we am going to develop with this child.  But I know that I am clueless to what parenting will look like and how it will affect me.  I have heard about the sleepless nights and the cranky kids.  But I haven’t really dealt with it much, so it doesn’t really process in my head.  So instead, I live in my blissful ignorance.

I have also heard from multiple dads about the connection to come with the child.  It is hard for a dad to connect with the child while it is still growing in the womb because there is not a physical connection yet.  And I have experienced this.  But I know that right now is the time that Whitney gets to connect and I don’t experience as much, and that is just how it is.  So I eagerly wait for January, when I expect to steal all of baby’s attention!

There is tons more that I can write about, but these are the main things that stick out in my head at the moment.  Whitney and I are ecstatic!  And the past couple months have been so exciting as we have watched the little one grow in her belly.  I look forward to January and getting to meet him/her and have everybody else do the same.

Blessings from Burlingame.

Next Level Contact Work

Contact work is one of the best parts of a youth pastor’s job. It’s the part that I enjoy the most because it often doesn’t feel like work.  For those of you who do not know the term contact work, it is a term used by YoungLife to describe leaders connecting with students outside of programmed times.  So in the church setting, it is connecting with students off the church property and outside of structured times.

This first step is a great one.  These connections are important.  They help to build up relationships with students as well as trust.  But I would like to talk about the next level of it.  How to turn these times into times of ministering as well as connecting.  If you would like more information on how to do the first steps of contact work, YoungLife has many great resources online that say things much better than I could.  I would encourage you to look it up.

I feel that I do contact work pretty well.  But I have started asking myself, “What can I do with that time to show care for the student and minister to them?”  Because after a few times of stopping by a kids house or going to their softball game, it because the regular.  And I am looking for ways to show that we as a church care for them above and beyond.

The answer that I have come up with is that it is not necessarily in the time spent with them.  Because we do not want them to feel that we have an agenda.  It would probably not work well if I asked a student if I could spend 20 minutes praying for them right there.  Rather, it is in the before and after times.  So I have come up with a list of questions to ask myself before and after I see a student:

• How has their life changed since the last time we saw each other (small or big)?
• What interests or hobbies do they have?  Can we connect over these?
• How is their relationship with their parents?  Is there anything that I can do to help this relationship?
• How is their social life?  Any recent changes?  Any falling outs?
• How is their academic life?
• What is to be celebrated in their life?  How can I celebrate with them?
• How can I be praying for them?

There are, of course, many more that can be put here.  These are just some that came to me as I was thinking about this.

This may not seem like a big deal, but they have been great as a reminder for me.  It reminds me to take time out of the “office-side” of my day to think and pray for students.  It also helps me to feel a little connected to a student when I see them.  I am able to ask follow up questions from a few weeks prior that makes them have a feeling of “wow, he remembers that?”  Which, in my mind, is a big win.