long long time....

There we go again. I have this nasty habit of letting life run past me in two month intervals. So much can happen in that span of time. Pathetic. I should be a little more disciplined. Yeesh.

Anyways I find myself at the tail end of a crazy month of July. LIT 1 is done and over with. Let me tell you the kind of job I thought I was going to be doing was completely wrong. I've learned alot about working with christians, and the propensity to make everything so damn personal. Don't get me wrong I love my faith. But something needs to change with in the christian community. Or more specifically Medeba Adventure Learning Center. This idea that because we are all christians it gives us the right to know anything and everything about each other with out building up trust in relationship first. Really bizarre.
I find myself working at a job with kids who are absolutely amazing. Rough around the edges but lovely kids nontheless. The mandate of the camp for this particular program is to raise up young potential leaders. However, the screening process is sketch at best. This past month we dealt with alot of so called 'second chance kids' the ones that are on the edge but could still be 'saved'. (in the words of my coworkers) I enjoy working with that kind of youth but the problem is none of the staff is equipped to be able to handle that kind of behind the scenes mandate. As a result last months program was a swirl of miscommunications, frusterations and exhaustion. I've heard Medeba is all about 'second chances' but the thing is that most staff are naive when it comes helping to sort out the issues these kids have. They undersestimate the ability of teenagers to manipulate the frame work they're under. I watched with morbid fascination, sighing underneath my breath as the boundaries were pushed by the teens and no consequences followed the threats issued by my co workers. They knew they could get away with what they were doing. Smoking pot, making out, sexual identity issues followed by homo erotic types of behaviours, cat fights, stealing, lying ,all sorts of sordid affairs. I must say it was like living on the set of Dawson's Creek. Except the kids weren't wearing the lateset J Crew fashions and their parents weren't as involved in the plot line. Oh hell, it was like a John Hughes film complete with forgein kid. I could get rich if I wrote a screenplay based on this summer. Fundementalist christian camp meets 21st century shenanigans.Hilarity ensues. Along with boycott by the southern baptist conference.
But things are looking up for August. The LIT 2 program has started and they are a great group. They want to be in the program and are excited. They are on their canoe trip right now. Regretably I wasn't in good enough health to go with. My heart hurts. I love the kind of bonding that happens over trips like that. I look foward to their return and the fun that will happen after that.