We have ditched our kids. No, not with strangers. This was a planned ditch. We are at a Young Life Conference—this is what prompted the trip to Florida in the first place.
Our kids are with their loving grandparents. All of them—Jon’s folks and my mom. We didn’t even warn our kids about our upcoming disappearance. Just pulled up to the hotel, we hopped out with the twins and waved good-bye to Sam and Alice who were trapped in their carseats. Harnesses are wonderful. I could hear the sobs before the car even pulled away. Poor things. Actually, poor parents (our parents that is, they gotta explain why Mommy and Daddy were suddenly abducted). In our experience prolonging the good-byes with the kids only makes it worse, so we just rip it off like a band aid—painful but quick. I have checked in once or twice. I guess Alice asks “Where’d Daddy go? Where’d Mommy go?” about every five minutes. The G-Ps (grandparents) keep telling her “they’ll be back tomorrow” (that’s one long tomorrow—we’re done with the conference Sunday). Yes, we believe in lying to children.
Young Life does this conference every four years—brings all 4000 YL Staffers and their spouses together from all over the world. It’s very cool. It’s been fun to be here. Because this is a quad-annual event (I am sure that’s not the proper description of every four years, but whatever), it’s a great way for me to reflect on where we have been over our marital journey. In 2000, Jon came to this conference alone because we weren’t married yet. I remember really wishing I could go with him. In 2004, this was our first big trip as a young married couple. After that trip in ’04 Jon and I kinda went crazy and did as much traveling as possible. We knew after having kids we would be stuck, and of course that’s exactly what happened. So glad we got our crazy travels in while we could. In 2008, we brought a 7-week old baby Sam with us. We were brand new parents and my dad had just died. It was probably the hardest period of our lives. I remember being here at the Orlando Marriott and sobbing constantly—at the sessions, listening to speakers, during the music, when I was alone, when I looked at Baby Sam, even if someone said “hi” to me on occasion. Broken-hearted, confused, tired. A very very challenging time in our lives. And then of course 2012. As we saw this trip on the horizon we did not expect to be here with one baby, let alone two! And yet here we are. We are in a new area with a new job with our babes, all not foreseen a year ago. Again I say, God is crazy, but so good.
This isn’t your typical work conference. Young Life people are their own breed—overstimulated super extroverts who love to have fun. We love people with a passion, after all, that’s our “business”—relationships. With 4000 of us here, I can only imagine what the hotel staff thinks—“who are these people’s. They are all so overly happy? And how do they all know each other? And dang, they are loud!” I guess when you work with a ministry that works with teenagers, it does tend to attract a specific type of person. A lot of khaki cargo shorts and flip flops and short sleeved collared shirts, people who like to run on their free time (I am NOT in that category, but whatever)…But so fun to be here. We are overwhelmed with gratefulness that we work for this organization.
While there are some business-ish meetings (as “businessy”as YL gets) the primary goal of this conference is to have fun, to celebrate the staff and be together. Example: Tuesday night they called us to a “session” at 4:30pm. Many of us were a little bummed to leave the sunny pool to go to a meeting, but instead they had a full sized tour bus in the conference room only to surprise us that instead of a meeting, they were taking all 4000 of us to SeaWorld! Young Life loves surprises.
As we were exited to load the bus, a friend looked at me with my double stroller and double babies (and Bernard, my breast pump!) and asked, “are you even excited about this?!? Is this a good surprise for someone who has to lug around twins?” Of course! Better to be at SeaWorld with babies than stuck in a hotel room. Or worse at home! Plus we can cross this off the twins list—“we already took you to SeaWorld boys, and don’t you forget it!”
Awesome night. They had set up in the SeaWorld stadium put in by the Cash Family Band, many of whom are YLers. Then Jeff Foxworthy showed up (also a YLer—his wife became a Christian at a YL camp in high school). Pretty magical night singing Journey songs while looking at a moonlit SeaWorld in the background. I haven’t been out that late in a long time, so very exciting for us.
We have seen tons of friends here, including Mark and Robin Benson who took over Young Life in Sisters. That’s pretty cool to see how God is taking care of the area we exited and things are going so well. We’ve heard from Tim Keller and Francis Chan as live session speakers, and Laura Bush, Kathy Lee Gifford, even Dolly Parton (via video). All were affected by Young Life. What a great mission we get to work with.
Free day Friday. Off to Epcot. Gonna drink our ways around the world. I really hope this doesn’t come off as offensive—talking about loving Jesus and serving kids but also drinking with friends and other staff in a Disney theme park. We believe in freedom in Christ and life to the fullest—a beer, a friend, and deep conversations about our amazing Creator. Doesn’t get much better than that.
