Rainy December

It has been raining in Chattanooga for a month. And not just here and there. Big rain. Rain coat rain. 'It looks like the Amazon in my backyard' kind of rain. 'Be careful not to get depressed' kind of rain.
It's raining a lot.

We are sitting in our living room about a week ago with Shepherd. Hope noticed a girl, probably fourteen or fifteen, walking down the street with nothing covering her from the rain but a fleece hoodie. It does not take a very an REI employee to know that fleece is not what you would call 'rain gear.' Hope told me that she had just bought an umbrella and wanted me to take it to her.

I walked through the house looking for shoes. Hope told me to hurry. So I threw on a pair of flip flops and ran outside with jeans, flip flops, and a white t-shirt that had shrunk a little too much to be wearing in public. I was halfway to the street when I realized how far down the road the girl was. I took off running and yelling at the girl. As I ran, I accidentally pushed the umbrella extend button.

I had not really thought about how to get her attention. So I just started yelling whatever came to my mind. "Hey you!" I blurted out first. I saw her look over her shoulder with concern. "Hey, come back here!" I yelled, waving the umbrella above my head. She picked up the pace. "Stop!!!" She started to jog briskly. Because I don't jog, I walked faster.

It hit me. This kid had an overweight, seemingly angry man running after her with what probably looked like a club of some sort.

I finally yelled, " I'm not going to hurt you! I want to give you an umbrella!" She was almost out of sight. I turned around to walk back to my house. In that instant, I heard a voice from up the road asking loudly, "What kind is it?"

It took a whole lot for me not to reply, 'The kind that keeps you dry!'

Bad Ideas Really Sting

Youth ministers are some of the most entertaining people on planet earth. They design interesting T-shirts. They order mass quantities of pizza and frozen lasagna. They can tune out all the noise on a fifteen passenger bus for hours at a time. If you look up 'multi-task' in the dictionary, there should be a picture of a youth minister. I have the incredible opportunity to spend time with at least one youth pastor each week. And, if nothing else, my sermon illustrations are better for it.
Last October, I was with a group of students from Chattanooga. We were somewhere in the middle of Tennessee. We were doing an event based on 'The Amazing Race' where the students were in cars with adults racing from place to place, trying to find clues so they could move to the next location. One of my youth minister friends (we will call him Joe, because that is his name) had forgotten to place a clue in the woods. This was the area where I was the moderator.
When Joe realized this, he came screaming in his Toyota Corolla to our location. Joe took off sprinting into the woods. He then moved to his next location, because, as most youth ministers, his schedule was a little off kilter.
The hunt was competitive, as most youth scavenger hunts are. The event was more intense because on the line was a free ski trip. This intensity culminated before my very eyes as every group showed up within seconds of one another (except for my buddy Mike's group, which was lost.) I quickly gave them their clue. All four groups, within seconds of one another, took off sprinting into the woods. Moments later, all of the groups were sprinting back. This made no sense, because they could only read the clue one team at a time. Then I noticed there was a cloud above their heads. A flying, buzzing cloud. Due to his frantic hurry, Joe had not realized he had placed the clue below a hornets' nest. Due to me not wanting to walk into the woods, I did not notice either.
One boy had his shirt off, swinging it above his head like a helicopter. Another boy was yelling, in a voice many would consider too deep for his size, "We have to go back in there! My brother did not come out!" I reassured him that it was a trip into the woods, not World War II, and that Hitler and the Axis Powers were not going to hold his brother hostage. I also comforted him by reminding him that his brother wouldn't even be stung that much, because he had on a long-sleeved paint ball shirt with a spider on it. I reminded him that hornets were afraid of spiders, especially spiders that play paintball, and he calmed down a lot.
The retreat was a lot of fun. There were a few stings, but nothing that some Benadryl could not handle. And some kids did get to go to Colorado for free. However, they hid some clues by some grizzly bear/polar bear hybrids. And Bears are not afraid of spiders. Or paint balls.