Friends To Family In Just One Week

Okay, so by everything that I've told you so far you might be thinking that since my youth group is so small and we do lots of awesome stuff together that we have always been incredibly close and very good friends, well boy would you be wrong. Now that's not to say that we weren't all friends the whole time, but we weren't always as close as we are now.

In our church the one thing that the Senior High youth group (grades 9-12) got to do every summer was go on a work camp. Growing up in the church my friends and I were all so excited to be in the Senior High so that we could go on the work camps and retreats and all the fun stuff that they got to do. Well, lets just say we were disappointed. I was in the youth group for 4 years, and only ever went on one work camp. Now, this is not me being all angry and upset that everyone else got to go on four and I only got to do one, that's not the point of this at all. You just need to understand that we were just frustrated at the time because it was something that was expected and once my class became freshman the whole idea of work camp seemed to be thrown to the way side.

So it was my Senior year of high school and I had never been on a work camp, and lets just say the whole youth group, myself included, was determined to make sure that the summer that coming summer we would be going on a work camp. Believe it or not, we got it all stored out. Our youth pastor, Ryan, found us an organization to go with and we found a week and place and it was all set. We spent the week of July 13-20 2013 in North Carolina.

Lets just say if we thought we were close and all good friends before we went down there, we were dead wrong. There is something about a 14 hour van ride with ten people and then working in the July heat and humidity in North Carolina that really brings people together. If you ever feel like you need to be closer with someone sign up to do a summer work camp with them somewhere in the south, it will really bring you together!

We left to go down there as a youth group and we came back as a family. I grew closer with those nine other people in one week than I had the whole 18 years I had been going to that church. That's not to say that I was not good friends with them before, but during that week our friendships were tested, pushed, and ultimately strengthened.

I will let you guys in on some of the details of the trip in one of my next posts, but for now I just want to encourage you that if you are thinking about volunteering to do a work camp or even just work in your community this summer that you should definitely get some people together and do it. It will bring you all closer to God and each other and will be an experience you will never forget!