Big City Life: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Every time I go home, my mom insists that I bring my old items back with me and like a good daughter, I do...slowly since my house isn't fixed up like I like it. On the last trip home, I recovered some photos by accident that were taken while I was in high school.

Old photos can be fun to look at, laugh at, and they can incriminate us. I hope no one takes to hard to the "way we used to be" before we were "all grown up".

These photos are from one of several trips our youth group made to Glorietta, New Mexico during the summer for their church camp. This particular trip, we strayed from our norm which was normal class sessions and a semi-traditional worship service and participated in CenterFuge. CenterFuge was a semi-new thing for Glorietta that involved a completely relaxed, contemporary worship service, and very actively involved class sessions that taught many lessons.

Our first night at CF, we had a general worship session where campers were blowing Skittles out their noses to see who could "blow" harder. We also had mattress body surfing where a camper or two or four laid on a mattress and we surfed it over the crowd in a race. The worship also had a serious side...one such "sermon" was called "Befriend Mingo" and we were taught to be Jesus-like and love and respect everyone. God doesn't make mistakes and he doesn't make trash. That hit home for me because I was always being made fun of (red hair, chubby, freckles, buck teeth). It is a lesson that is hard for our society...it was then and is now. Media teaches our impressionable people who should be accepted and what is accepted even if the point of view is skued.

Our sessions rocked out. Becky and I were part of "The Jefferson's"! We were a very wild bunch of 35 teens to 1 adult. The purpose of the sessions were many and varied. We had to stand on long blocks of wood that held 10 people and pick up a rope and walk as a group...guys vs. girls...to learn cooperation and team work. Girls win...sorry guys! We also had a maze of rope around a tree with someone telling us which direction to go while blindfolded to teach trust and communication. The overall goal was to be loud and "filled with the Spirit". I remember our group had tons of chants and end the end after winning a crazy relay, The Jefferson's were victorious over the other groups!

Memory lane is just that...memories. But those memories can serve to teach and better a person as he/she moves forward in life. I really hope you enjoy these pictures...if so, let me know because I have more "Memory Lane" stories and pictures I can share.