When I opened up the Accidental Nomad Life I wanted to open up the book of my story and share it with you. I've gone back and forth with where to begin my story at and have come to the conclusion that it'd be best to start at the beginning and from there I can give you the bits and pieces that have impacted, scarred, molded and constructed me into this work in progress.
I'll spare you birth details and I don't have a lot of memories growing up so I consider my Jesus story beginning or, I guess, blossoming to life one day at youth group when I was 14.
I grew up in a home with loving parents, parents that loved Jesus, an avidly-praying mom who made Jesus a reality and living relationship her top parenting priority. (insert all the praise hands and heart eyes here) We regularly made it to church, Sunday school, youth group and she was very active in the church.
So I had a solid foundation, all of the right seeds planted and I lived the "good Christian life" up to that point.
And then I first felt Jesus grab a hold of my heart for real.
There was a man at youth group that night, sharing with us about an organization called CEF. I was already familiar with the organization, Child Evangelism Fellowship. We grew up going to the 5-Day Clubs and Good News Club, the after school Bible class, the casual, summer VBS hosted in a local's back yard. We had been through it all.
The man was calling us to a challenge. Sacrificing our summer to share the Good News with the boys and girls of the area by teaching them at 5-Day Clubs.
I KNEW I wanted in. I KNEW that I was being called to teaching.
So I signed up. I went through the background check, the application process and the preliminary training.
And then I went to camp.
I remember the drive up there. It was a LOOOOOOOOOOONG drive. I don't remember real clearly who was in the car with me, the best I can remember is just my family...correct me if I'm wrong Mom...?
When we finally pulled up I remember how beautiful it was to drive in. The camp was tucked back into the woods, down a long dirt road and you drove by a couple of small fields on either side dotted with the yellow and purple flowers of the first couple weeks of June.
Unbeknownst to myself, I was headed into two of the hardest, most trying, most teaching weeks of my life and all I saw was the beauty of the field and how excited I was to go and spend two weeks at camp.
I don't remember fear. I should have been afraid: I was going into a place that I didn't know all on my own. I had no companion to accompany me, I had no team members going and I had no curriculum to study from. It was just me, the Call and my excitement for summer camp.
Things went smoothly in the very beginning. I remember getting all signed in and going to see my cabin. I met a few of the girls that would become my best, closest, lifelong friends and the sweetest counselor. I found my bunk, settled my things and moved on with the first day.
In all honesty, things are so very fuzzy for me so I will skip ahead to the hard part.
I had no curriculum to use. We were at this intense training camp to learn the curriculum that we would be teaching for the summer and we had to memorize, recite and know all of the verses by heart. I was dumb-struck. The organizer of our local CEF chapter had not prepared me for this AT. ALL. He didn't send my books, bag or teaching pieces,
I had been knocked on my butt. I didn't really know what to do. Thankfully one of the other leaders had an extra set to use, CEF recycles their stories every few years so she had her previous set available.
Overwhelming. I can't adequately describe the emotions that I was feeling because of this stumbling block.
My faith was being shaken right down to the core.
I look back now and realize how applicable it would be to the rest of my life to have this experience of being all alone with Jesus as my only leg to stand on...
Story continued on Friday...
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