Now that school’s almost done, I can begin to think about the summer. In fact, I already have.

June 16-22, the youth group from Aldersgate UMC [my home church] is going down to Safety Harbor, FL [near Tampa] for a week-long mission trip. We’re not exactly sure what we’ll be doing yet, but it promises to be a good time. Darin, our Youth Director, has been there before, and his kids enjoyed it. I’m sure that our kids will as well. As much as I love missions, I told Darin that I’d be sure to have that time available to be off from work.

Assuming that I can be so bold as to take two weeks off from TBE [and yes, I'll actually have the vacation time, since I've been accruing it since August 1999, when I started working here, even if I can't spend any of it], I’m going to take the next week off and return yet again to Mississippi for MissionFest 2002.
The other day, I emailed David Carroll, the Youth Director at Galloway UMC in Jackson, to see if he could use a spare adult. “Geof, we can ALWAYS use a helping hand like yours. If you would be interested in coming, we would LOVE to have you.” Boy, that was good to hear. Last year, I felt like a bit of a heel going as a “counselor from Galloway” … I really don’t know that many of their youth anymore [the only time I see them every year is at MissionFest], but David’s always happy to have a spare set of hands–and someone to drive a van around from site to site.

You know, I had a great time at MissionFest 2001, and about the only thing that I can tell you that I did was this: drive the van. Sure, I worked alongside the kids. I washed dishes at a women’s shelter, helped reorganize some furniture at a local thrift store, and used a weed-eater most of the way down one of Jackson’s inner-city streets to clean the place up, but most of all, I was there as someone who could listen to the kids—someone who’d been there before.

MissionFest is where the love of Christ first came to be real to me, and it’s also where I was called into ministry. I guess one of the reasons that I go back every year in my swallows-to-San-Capistrano-esque … idiom is that I’m trying to recapture my youth and enthusiasm. But I also just love to serve and worship with people that I consider to be my family. It’s great to watch the kids who come to MissionFest come to the same realizations that I have found there.

This year will make eight of the last nine years that I’ve attended MissionFest. I guess you could call me a lifer. I think this year alsom means that I’ll have been to a majority of the events. Actually, now that I count, last year did that. Wow, that’s kinda scary.
I’ve got other plans, but, well, I’m not going to reveal too much. But one thing that I do want to do is get into taking some photos. I don’t do that, and I regret it. I’d love a digital camera and a laptop so I can take evidence of those two weeks in June and keep it with me forever.