That was what Jon-boy said to me at 11:30pm on Friday night as our group sat around a rental house in the Sierra's huddled together under whatever blankets we could find, hoping the fire we had started would warm us up quickly. How right he was.
It's a long story but let's just say that the storms that hit the west last week, left a lot of trees down. One was on the power lines right outside the rental house we were at. We didn't know that until we arrived to see a tree across the road and a 4ft berm of snow preventing us from pulling onto the parking pad in front of the house. We didn't know that until the neighbor offering to call someone to come plow the driveway area for us said she would have to go into use her rotary phone. Even then, it took a moment for it to click...that would be the moment when my hand clicked on the light switch for the light that didn't come on. No power.
No power meant no heater, no stove and, as we would learn the next day, no water heater. But we are resourceful people and we made do. The wood burning stove was put to use and eventually got the house to 52 degrees (but that took over a day and half). There were plenty of blankets and just the right number of couches for the 8 of us. Many of us had brought flashlights and we found two emergency candles to light. We powered through (pun intended).
We bought a camp stove and candles, we found all the blankets in the house and pulled them into the living room, we huddled together and talked about God's story and told our stories, we laughed, we snapped at each other and we made the best of the situation we were in. All in all, it was going well.
But when the power was still out on Sunday morning and I had found out the hard way that the hot water heater was electric, enough was enough. We called it quits and came home a day early. No broken bones or broken down cars. Just 7 kind of stinky people and 1 hot water hog and another adventure in youth ministry that we will be talking about for years.
2 comments:
Yeah, and they actually made a book on how to create those kind of moments in youth ministry. Who needs to plan them? Have you ever been on a trip that did not have teachable memorable moments. :)Glad you are home. Kinda glad I did not come with you :)
Seriously no amount of planning creates the kind of memories we get from the unplanned moments...and I'm a planner!
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