Train Comin’ Round the Bend. . .

If I stayed on this train, I could go back to LA. No, thanks.

I slept most of the bus ride to Raton. It was a Greyhound that Amtrak uses as a shuttle to a train station, so now Jut can’t make fun of me for never having ridden one. It wasn’t very crowded and I had a whole two seats to myself, so I tried to figure out the 3 Mennonite couples that got on in Colorado Springs, listened to Sam Beam, enjoyed the scenery near the Colorado/New Mexico border, and slept. We took 25 the whole way to Raton, stopping at Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Raton was interesting — a tiny peach-colored adobe building that was the train station. Apparently we lucked out and it was open, because it is closed 8 months of the year and you have to handle your own bags and just chill on the side of the tracks instead of on the 40-year-old chairs inside the lobby.

So now I’m on the upper level on the last passenger car, watching the brown grass and little shrubs go by. We were following the highway for a while, but now we’re in the middle of nowhere. Either the telephone poles here are really short, or they just look so because I’m on the second story. There were some mountain-goat-ish looking animals a while back. (I don’t have any idea what they really were; the mountain goat thing is wishful thinking.) I think we’re stopping in Las Vegas, NM and Santa Fe before we arrive in Albuquerque.

Riding a train is so different than a plane. People actually want to engage in conversation — the whole time we were waiting in Raton, I talked with an 85-year-old black lady from Denver who was going to Long Beach to visit her daughter; a 50-something lady from Denver who was going to San Bernardino to visit her daughter; and a 60-something retired nanny who was going home to Flagstaff. Now I’m sitting next to a lady who has her two daughters and they’re going home to Riverside after spending time in Denver. The car is a lot different, too — there is so much more leg room, body room, reclining room. It is quite nice. And the lounge car is awesome — it has full length windows that go up over the top of the car, too, and there are little chairs and it’s all light. It looks like a train from the movies. I think I would like to try to train more often.

I think I might go check out the dining car and see how overpriced it is. I’ve already eaten like 80 granola bars and it would be nice to get some real food.

Riding That Train, HIgh on Cocaine. . .

I am at Union Station in Denver. It is 5:30 am, and I have been here for 45 minutes. My bus for Raton, NM, providing connecting service to Albuquerque via the Southwest Chief, leaves at 6:00. There is free wireless here, of course.

I had an interesting night at the Hostel. After I wrote, I went out to look for a light rail/bus schedule, and ran into Christian and Mark, two guys who had just gotten in. They were probably in their 40s, friendly, a little bit uncomfortably so. I got a new roommate, too, a Korean girl who turned on all the lights and banged around and pissed off Eileen. When she got there, she locked me out of the room by mistake, so I talked to Christian for awhile and he told me his life story — everything from his fiancee dying in a car accident to being homeless in Guatemala and Phoenix to coming back to Denver after being attacked by a dog. He offered to walk with me this morning to the train station, but I told him he didn’t need to, and I left before I told him I was going to so as to prevent the awkward early-morning company.

The lady at the Hostel said I could catch the light rail to 16th Street for $1.25, and then catch a free bus to Union Station from there, so I got up super early (not that I slept last night anyway) and started walking to the light rail station. But I wussed out after about 2 blocks — I have a ton of crap with me and it’s heavy!! — and called a cab. So I got here for $6, almost an hour early.

Right now it is me and a bunch of old ladies. This must be the old lady train to New Mexico. I guess I didn’t get the memo. So, it’s an adventure. I hope I can sleep a bit on the bus so I’m not a huge pill when I get to Brenna’s. The ticket window just opened, so I better go get hooked up.

Rocky Mountain High. . .

I am at the Melbourne International Youth Hostel, reclining in my glorious bunk bed, sharing the lamplight with my 70-year-old roommate, Eileen. There is supposedly a kid from Boston signed in the book downstairs, but I haven’t seen him. In fact, all I’ve seen is Eileen, and another old lady watching TV in the lounge. Eileen are the only people in this 6-bunk room, and I just took a nice shower and there is a cool, rainy breeze coming through the window by my bed. I haven’t seen rain in two-and-a-half months, and it is fantastic. All for $14.75. Can’t beat it. I was hoping there would be a convenience shop or a bar where I could get a beer, but it’s sort of secluded. It’s probably better if I just go to sleep.

I got up this morning and had coffee with KJ and Yendra, and then went to the office with KJ. We were planning to go to Estes Park to hang out and talk about his book, but we didn’t have time because he had to go to a staff lunch meeting that he forgot about. So I tagged along and ate Sechuan Chicken on the Christ Community budget, and saw the inner-workings of a mega-church first hand. I don’t think I could ever work at a church. It felt like I was in A Mighty Wind but with a church — I couldn’t take them seriously, talking about the “Tiny Tots” program and the “Kid’s Connection” program and the “Mommy and Me” program. But hey, it takes all kinds, and if that’s working for them, then great.

We ended up just going to a cafe in Greeley right by the UNC campus called Margie’s, which reminded me a lot of the Beehive but less indie-fabulous. So we talked about the book, tentatively titled The Diner Effect and Dale even came by, because he’s an accountant and he can work whenever he wants (or doesn’t want). So while they talked through ideas, I typed them up as an outline, which I’m going to email to them so they can start writing. Yendra came for a bit too and we all just talked through ideas, dialogued about the three main ideas of the book: (1) grace as cheap vs. costly; (2) the concept of acquaintance vs. relationship; and (3) the church as the bride vs. the whore. It has just been so encouraging to talk with KJ and Yendra and Dale, to engage with them, intellectually, spiritually. I really didn’t want to leave this evening. KJ and I had an awesome conversation in the car on the way here, too; he’s been studying a lot of Judaism lately, really taking the New Testament in the context of the Old Testament, which is where the authors of the NT were coming from. He shed light on a lot of things for me — from evolution to Revelation to communion to baptism — all of which make so much sense when looked at through an Old Testament lens. If I do my b.Phil about Biblical decontextualization, I am totally moving to Greeley for the semester and using KJ as my outside advisor.

So, it has been an awesome few days in the greater Denver area. Spending so much time with cool, relevant, thinking Christians has been wonderful — it has made me realize that I need people like that in my life, and I’m excited to find them when I finally decide a place to settle down in, at least for a few years. It was somewhat surreal to be hanging out with KJ, at his house, with his wife; but it’s really cool how we can just pick up where we left off two years ago and be completely comfortable, have great conversation, smoke menthols. The relationships you form with strangers when you live with them 24/7 for 3 months doing one of the strangest jobs ever are good ones.

All The Gold in California. . .

I am done. I made this official today by drinking a Red Hook draft at an airport bar, and smoking Marlboro menthols with KJ this evening.

Our closing retreat was surprisingly amazing. I didn’t realize how much I had bonded with my Area, the San Diego and San Francisco staffs, how much fun we had together and how well we had gotten to know each other, despite the short amount of time we got to spend together. We had a blast hanging out the past few nights, going to dinner together Sunday night, staying up late playing Mao at the hotel, having an emotional processing time Monday afternoon, a great time of just us worshipping Monday night, staying up together and finally falling asleep at the church.

It was also surprisingly difficult to say goodbye today. I didn’t feel all that invested in this whole thing this summer as it was happening, but as I realized that I might never see any of these amazing people again, all that has happened in the last two-and-a-half months hit me. Tyler and I saw Ricardo off at 4:00 this morning, praying together one last time, crying. I saw Tyler and Stephen off at 6:00, and then rode to the airport with Becky, Ross, Ben, Brandon, and Jessica. We went to the bar and celebrated, said our goodbyes, and Becky’s mom and brother came to get us. They dropped me off at the Applebee’s in Brighton, Colorado, where KJ was going to pick me up. I said goodbye to Becky and sat on a bench in front of the restaurant with all of my crap, watching them drive away and just crying, feeling more lonely than I’ve felt in a long time.

It’s crazy to go from living in this type of community — the support, accountability, love, encouragement, presence that is so constant. And even for all the times I may have wanted to get away from it, have time to myself, for people to just leave me alone — it really is powerful to live like that, and when it is suddenly gone, it really hurts. I truly grew to love all those fools this summer, especially Becky, Tyler and Ricardo. Despite how we must have felt when we met each other, having nothing at all in common, wondering how in the world this summer was ever going to work out, God drew us together, and I’m walking away from this summer with a bunch of life-long, dependable friends.

I kind of hate the closing retreat because it makes me forget about all the crap we deal with during the summer and makes me love YouthWorks again. Honestly, last night I was listening to someone talk about a site in Wyoming and I was like, “Yeah, I could totally do this next summer and go to a rural or reservation site!” It’s sort of absurd. I hope I have a real job by next summer so I don’t have to fight about whether or not to come back.

So, I’m at KJ’s now in Greeley — he picked me up from Applebee’s and we went to lunch with his friend, Dale, who has been working with him on the book he wants me to edit. We had good, stimulating conversation about the relevant church, youth missions, and mega-churches over pizza with artichokes and avocados and cream cheese and tomatoes. We went to KJ’s church and he showed me some of the stuff he’s been working on with his youth group. He’s really doing an amazing job out here — it was just refreshing and encouraging to see a youth pastor who cares about his kids, who wants to challenge them and engage them, who is helping them grow, after all the jerks we’ve seen this summer who don’t seem to care. He also made me edit a letter his secretary wrote for him. With a red pen.

We hung out with his youth tonight at a Tuesday night “Cafe” hang-out thing they do. At first I was like, “If I have to engage with kids one more night I’m going to knife myself in the eye,” but it was good. His kids are cool, and it was awesome to see a bit of their post-mission-trip processing, just to reinforce that they get something out of it. I also got to hang out with an adult leader from San Francisco two years ago and just catch up with her, which was great. The bonds I’ve made through YouthWorks never cease to amaze me.

It’s been awesome to chill with KJ and Yendra at their house — all of which are awesome. Yendra is really cool; I like her a lot. I had really no idea what to expect of her, but she’s a really sweet girl and it was great to talk with her this evening. Their house is really cute — they’ve done a ton of work on it and have made it into a home. Instead of a TV in their living room, they have a lilly pond/waterfall thing with fish in it. KJ said that not having a TV forces them to talk to each other and hang out together, even when they might not want to. They’re working on their basement now, and I have it all to myself for my stay — a room with a big double bed, a bathroom with my own shower. It’s cool to see KJ and Yendra together — I can hear them talking upstairs in bed, and it’s really cute. I’m sure they have their share of troubles, as any young couple does, but they are cute together and it’s just nice to be around them.

I’m going to turn in early, being as I slept about 3 hours last night. KJ is taking the day off tomorrow and we’re going to Estes Park to hang out at cafes and talk about his book, and then I’m finding some way back to the city to my hostel. Train-ing out bright and early Thursday morning to Albuquerque!

“California’s Been Good to Me; Hope it Don’t Fall into the Sea. . .”

I’m writing from the road — I-70 West in Utah. I made a sweet On-the-Go playlist for Tracy, Becky, Stephen and I to listen to — one thing I hadn’t realized I’d missed so much this summer is music. It has been amazing to just listen to good music while driving. There’s pretty much nothing like it. Utah is still gorgeous — amazing rock formations, puffy white clouds, open road. I hope my drive from Albuquerque to Glenwood is as nice.

So, this summer is almost over. We had a great last week. 38 kids — 6 from Denver, 13 from outside Minneapolis, and the rest from Medford, Oregon. All the Oregon groups we’ve had this summer have been really awesome — just good people, unique personalities, kind of hippies. Two of the adult leaders brewed fresh French press coffee every morning, and always saved a cup for me, so that was nice. I’m looking forward to drinking coffee other than the Costco blend, too. The group from Minnesota was probably my favorite church group of the whole summer — they totally redeemed the real jerkfaced Minnesotans we had earlier in the summer. They were just a really great group of kids; their youth pastor was hilarious and always doing crazy stuff with them.

I really connected with a girl named Samira, and we stayed up late talking pretty much every night. It was really the only meaningful interaction I had with a student, one-on-one, the whole summer. She was sixteen, struggling with many of the things 16-year-olds struggle with, but she thought about them more than most 16-year-olds do. She wasn’t a Christian (her dad was Muslim and her mom didn’t really believe anything) and she was just full of questions — from “Do you believe in evolution?” to “How do you know there is a God?” to “How do you know when God is telling you something?” to “Do you think gay people go to hell?” to “Do you believe there is a hell?” I could go on. The highlight was when I used GORP to explain the trinity to her when she asked about that. She told me on Wednesday night how she just wanted to feel God, she just wanted to cry, to be overcome with emotion and know that God was there. On Thursday, I prayed that God would just move, that He would just make Himself so evident to her that she couldn’t possibly miss it. So after footwashing, she says she wants to talk, and fires the questions away again — “How do you know when is the right time to accept Christ?” — and I realized that God was going to use me to move for her, that I was going to answer my own prayer. So, it was cool to be a part of that, and I enjoyed talking with her a lot.

Friday and Saturday were a bit stressful, trying to pack up, say goodbye to everyone, get my travel plans in order for the next few weeks. But we got on the road about noon yesterday, and drove to Richfield, Utah, to spend the night at the Luxury Inn. We will get to Denver today — our goal is to average 75 mph. We’ll stay with our Region at a nice hotel downtown tonight, and then wrap everything up at the retreat tomorrow.

Yesterday, I booked my plane ticket home from Albuquerque and reserved a rental car for Jut and I to drive around the Southwest. I’m pretty much psyched out of my mind to get down there. This summer has been really good for Jut and I; although there have been frustrations with being so out of communication, so out of context with our relationship, I feel 100% positive about it. Being away from him, meeting so many new people, has really made me realize how much I love him, how good our relationship is, how much better he is than anyone else I know or have ever known. So it will be amazing to see him, hang out for a bunch of days, listen to good music, cook good food together, hike around, drive around — do all the things we both like to do so much, and be with each other.

The question of this road trip has been, “So, will you do this again?” My first instinct is a resounding NO. Although this summer has been really great — I’ve grown a lot, have made a lot of great life-long friends, and gotten an amazing working knowledge of the strangest city I’ve ever encountered — there have been a lot of things about YouthWorks (short-term, urban youth missions in general) that I have really disagreed with. I guess it comes down to one of those situations where you have to see if the good things outweigh the bad, and I’m not sure that they do. This summer was frustrating, mostly dealing with YouthWorks chain-of-command issues, having people come to our site and try to tell us how to do things when we’d been doing them well for weeks. I also felt like YouthWorks has grown a lot in the past 2 years, and they have become more about following a schedule, doing things the way they “should” be done, instead of being flexible, caring about people, meeting their needs. It was the little details, the picky-ness, the specifics that I didn’t agree with this summer.

I was also conflicted about the kids coming out for a week and leaving feeling like they had made “such a difference” — this was a summer-long struggle for me, but really sunk in this week. In reality, they didn’t make a difference at all — if they didn’t do the work they did, someone else would have done it, and for many of our ministry sites, I felt like they had to scramble and scrounge up work for our volunteers to do, and we were more of a pain than a blessing. When a youth groups goes to a “mission trip” to a place like LA, it is more for their own benefit than the community’s, and I felt like no one was honest about that. The real reason kids go to the places they went in LA was so their eyes might be opened to another way of life that they had never seen, to be shocked and awed, to be disgusted that people like this way, while they enjoy such abundance, to inspire them so that once they have the means, they might be able to do something to make a difference. But instead, they come away feeling good about themselves, like they’ve helped so many people. That is not the point.

This is the 7th consecutive summer that YouthWorks has been an integral part of for me — that’s a long time. I complain about youth groups that have been on too many YouthWorks trips, because they have expectations of how things should or shouldn’t be. But I’m beginning to wonder if I am falling into that category — if I have taken too many YouthWorks trips and it’s time for me to go. Nadine has talked to me about being a Site Director next summer, and if I happened to be living in San Francisco by next year that could be really cool — but I think I’d probably only consider working with them again if I didn’t have a job by next summer. I think with another year of real-world experience, a YouthWorks summer might be pretty close to unbearable.

It will be nice to get this over and start thinking about Prague. I am getting excited for it — for the complete difference between that and YouthWorks, for the new city to explore, for the people to meet, and for the amazing Czech beer to drink.

I think I’m going to read to try to nap or just enjoy looking out the window. 300 miles from Denver. . .

Bicky & Meg – Toothbrushing

Bicky & Meg – Toothbrushing
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

My dream every day is for Bicky to brush her teeth with me before bed, and this is the first time she actually did. Oh, Bicky.

Live from Hollywood. . .

Haven’t been here in a while. I hate it. I always forget that until I’m here, and then I’m like, “Why the heck am I in Hollywood?” It’s pretty much the loneliest place ever, I think.

We just finished Week 7 — a really good one, following in the vein of other odd weeks, 3 and 5. We had a big group of like 30 from boone-town Wisconsin; a group of 9 from Logan, Utah; and 5 guys from inner-city Minneapolis who work for YE, the organization that screen-prints all our Youthworks t-shirts. They were a cool bunch, very into serving, very into processing what they saw, trying to put into context. It felt like the majority of them got it, were changed somehow by their experiences, which is fantastic. The Utah group was very interesting — they were a conglomeration of all the churches in their little town, very much a population in the minority with all the LDS churches there. I learned a lot about the LDS church, as one of their youth was about ready to sign up; we talked a lot, my eyes were really opened to that. It isn’t all that different from conservative Christianity, but is growing faster — which is the most scary part. The kids were all children of university professors — little pseudo-hippie intellectuals, into recycling and being vegetarians and long hair and reading the NYT. They got mad when I quoted Napoleon because they said their lives were actually like that and they found the movie offensive. I loved them.

Mom and Dad were here last weekend, and that was pretty much glorious. We spent a lot of time just driving around, “seeing” LA, because that’s pretty much all there is to do here. There aren’t really attractions, just places to go so you can say you went there. We drove through Hollywood, Beverly HIlls, Bel Air, Burbank, etc. It was just so nice to spend time with them, and be happy doing dumb things — it was fun to relax and do things that we enjoy doing, because we enjoy doing the same things. That is very much something I’ve realized I have been taking advantage of for the past few years.

We went to dinner in Chinatown tonight with Randy, the pastor of our church, and his 6-year-old son, Lucas. It was a blast. We spend an inordinate amount of YW! hospitality budget on “slippery shrimp,” green beans and asparagus, chicken with snow peas, mixed vegetables and pork dumplings. Lucas was incredibly entertaining — a smart little guy — and it was nice to spend some time with Randy and hear about all the cool stuff he’s done. We went on a little driving tour of Echo Park and SIlverlake after dinner — Randy took us up (and down) the two steepest streets in LA and showed us their cute 3-story condo that has an amazing view of Downtown. It was the first time in a while that I actually felt affection for this city — I was like, “Yeah, I could live here someday, get a cute little condo with my husband and awesome kid.” It made me homesick to be in a neighborhood with someone who knew all its little quirks, to drive down residential streets and see people on porches and sidewalks, to think of a home. I think I’m ready for my next thing — LA is winding down, I’m getting excited for Prague, and then for my adult life to begin.

I’m getting my post-YW plans in order. I talked to KJ today, and I’m going to hang out with him after my retreat is over next Tuesday. Then I’m going to go to a hostel near the train station in Denver Wednesday night, most likely the lovely Melbourne Hotel & Hostel , so I can catch a $52 train to Albuquerque at 6:00 Thursday morning. Then I’ll spend a few days with Brenna, get a rental car, and drive to Glenwood probably Saturday to greet Jut when he gets out of the woods! I think I’ll fly out sometime the next week, I haven’t decided exactly when. So, I’m excited about that.

We’re going to hang out with our Silverlake friends tomorrow to say goodbye, then probably start packing up what we can, doing paperwork, etc. on Sunday — so it will be a busy but good weekend. We’re trying to arrange a stop at the Grand Canyon on the way back to Denver, so the sooner we can leave next week, the better. So now, this God-forsaken cafe is about to close, I’m getting up at 6:00 tomorrow to run to the top of Mt. Hollywood in an attempt to burn off some of the YW! pudge, and it’s time to go.

Area Retreat – Area 19

AreaRetreat-Area19
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Our area after a day at Huntington Beach. (Including Tammy, the Week 5 replacement Site Director in San Francisco!! Oh dear.)

Boogie Boarding 3

BoogieBoarding3
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Tyler, Me, Carissa and Ross again before boarding. This is the real OC.

Boogie Boarding 2

BoogieBoarding
Originally uploaded by Meg Around The World.

Tyler, Me, Carissa and Ross getting ready to boogie. . .after I recovered from that first wave that scared me and forced me to get Jamba Juice to console myself.