I'm getting too old for camp...

There are just so many fart jokes one man can take for an entire weekend.

This past weekend we took the teens from our Alpha church to The OAKS Camp and Conference center in Lake Hughes, CA. For the past four years we have taken a ton of teens from the Garnet neighborhood to this camp. It's a great place, and I really vibe with a lot of their values, which are extremely Kingdom based. This year we brought 8 teens from the Maple neighborhood. This has been my third year going to camp and going into the weekend I was NOT excited.

There were 17 boys and 11 girls that went up. My friends Matt, Sergio, and I were the only ones from staff who were there to take care of 14 Jr. High and High Schoolers. We were going to be stuck all in one cabin, for three days, living life together. Like I mentioned before, there are only so many fart jokes one man can take. It was like I was ripped out of my 30s and transported back into Jr. High with all of its hormone filled awkwardness. 

What first started out as dread, my attitude towards camp slow changed. I was able to reconnect with many of the students. I felt God's presence during many occasions. I could also see how God was talking specifically to not only our teens, but also to our staff. He was moving and allowing us to be a part of it. My roommate, Tommy, was the speaker at camp and the whole time I didn't once think about how well he was doing while speaking. It wasn't because Tommy wasn't good, but it was because it was overly apparent that God and His spirit was moving... it almost made Tommy obsolete (in a good way).  Five people made decisions to follow Christ for the first time.  Another half a dozen rededicated their lives to God's purpose and plan for their lives.  The best part was that the decisions were not some sort of emotionally manipulated
 "alter call."  Instead, after Tommy spoke, we were instructed to go back in silence to meet with the community of people who we came to camp with.  In these smaller communities, the opportunity to make life-changing decisions was given.  This is when the teens decided on their own - without manipulation, intentionally downplaying the desire to have attention poured on them - these were decisions were ones that they wanted to make on their own. 

There were two parts of camp that I felt personally blessed to be a part of. First, I got a chance to reconnect with Israel, Karin, and Sergio (pictured below). For the past three years Matt and I have journeyed with these three guys. There have been many ups and downs, but through it all we have remained friends. I have been able to give them advice, direction towards God, and perspective in certain situation. Those three guys, have specifically, have changed my view on what God originally intended church to be like. Even though I try and express this to them, they have had played a huge role in my own personal spiritual formation that they don't always understand. The guys all opened up about destructive things that they want to change in their lives. I was able to open up with them and allow them to speak into my life. There were many great moments with these guys.

The second part of camp that really impacted me was setting up The Most Valuable T-Shirt (www.themostvaluabletshirt.com). There were so many people that helped out to make this website work. From Mission Increase inspiring us to do something completely out of the box (mulberries, whooo hoo!), to my friend Adam who designed the entire site, to the teens who designed the t-shirts, to those of you who decided to sponsor a teen to go to camp and go one of these shirts in return. It was so fun to oversee this whole project and to know that God used it for his own good. The best part of The Most Valuable T-Shirt was being able to connect each donor to the teen that they sponsored. Each donor sponsored a specific teen to go to camp. And each of those teens had unique situation that led them to camp. I asked each donor to pray over the teens and some prayer requests that I was coming up with off the top of my mind. Even God had his hand in this because many of you were ask to pray for very specific things that were actually answered at camp. It was kind of baffling to be honest. Yet amazing all at the same time.

Sergio getting ready to jump off the leap of faith

Israel bear hugging little Diego.  Israel is a big kid.  I used to be taller and out weigh him.  Now he can just crush me like he did to Diego. 

Karin and I at the last session

Final group shot... the "silly picture" is a camp tradition.  Every year we do it and every year I have to come up with another pose.

Why am I still single: an even more confusing look into the life of the "30 and single"

Returning back to my home town and running into my own friends and acquaintances undoubtedly brings up three questions.

1.  How’s Solidarity doing? 
2.  When are you moving back to the Bay Area? 
3.  Are you dating anyone yet?

Without fail most of my conversations end up revolving around those three subjects.  The first two are expected questions, but the third… well the third really intrigues me.  Some people are just bold and ask what’s wrong with me, how come I’m not dating, married, and popping out little Kevins.  When I was younger I got that question outright a lot more often.  It seems that the older I get, the more people really want to ask the third question, yet some get a little apprehensive and nervous to ask it.  It is as if they don’t want to offend me, or remind me of a missed opportunity.  Maybe it’s a fear that the question will bring up pass regrets with an ex, or a sense of trepidation that the question will cast an overwhelming fog of loneliness onto my life.  I think the question triggers all sorts of random emotions within me, but I never really dread the question.

When I was still in elementary school I remember talking to my mom on my bed about my plans for my life.  I thought I would have taken 4 years to graduate college, met a girl there, married just out of college, found an amazing job, bought a house, started my masters, and then waited to have kids around 25.  There were moments in my life that my adolescent life map began to match up with the reality surrounding me.  After I graduated college I started dating a girl for 3 years and fell in love.  We had a great relationship.  I was checking out Masters programs at CSUF.  Things were falling into place, but I think deep down I knew I wasn’t ready for marriage even then.  I was a 23 year old college graduate in a great relationship, but in reality, was still that same little elementary kid sitting in his room with his mom talking about what my future “might” look like. 

I am now 30.  This is the decade that people are supposed to have life all figured out.  I never imagined years ago that I would be single at this point in my life.  I always thought I’d be married and raising a family by the time I reached my 30s.

The third question doesn’t just happen when I’m at home.  I hear it at work, when I go to weddings, when I catch up with long lost friends at parties, and random times when I go out to coffee.  I often hear “you should really meet my friend…” or “what do you think of so-and-so?”  Maybe it is a little weird.  I have not even been on a date since my last relationship, 4 years ago (the closest was with this friend of a friend who lived in LA, acting, and was never really a reality… and that’s a whole other story, ha).  Talk about a dry spell.  My love life is like trying to take a bit of a saltine cracker sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard, in a bucket of sawdust, in the middle of the Mohave. 

Sometimes I think about my predicament.  Why am I still single?  Why haven’t I even gone on one date since my last relationship?  I am a relatively good catch, right?  I’m 30, single, working at a minimum wage job, and sleeping in the “office” of my married friends’ condo.  Ha ha… if that is NOT a catch I’m not too sure what is?

If I were to honestly reflect, at some point in the past eight years the value of marriage has slipped down a couple of notches.  I am not too sure why it has.  Something that used to seem inevitable, all of a sudden has a big question mark following it.  I have not ruled out marriage at all.  There are parts of me that would love to have a girl I could share everything with.   I have been in awe and wished I had someone next to me that I could have experienced that with.  I’ve walked out of that amazing restaurant bleeding of joy, heard a certain song at that unexplainable moment, took a walk in the rain while the air was just perfectly warm and wished that there was an amazing woman there with me.  Sometimes I wish I had a girl who just understood me, and in my endless ramblings and absurd verbal processing, could just sit and candidly nod her head “yes.”  Yet the pursuit of this mysterious woman has lost its luster.  I look for her, but I guess I just don’t try too hard.  There is a sense that if it is to come… then it will come.   No need to force it.  There is no urgency.

Fear might be a reason for my lack or urgency.  Let’s face it, I’m not getting any younger, any better looking, or increasing any of my attractiveness points.  The past four years since my last relationship has been some of the most amazing moments of my life.  In the past few years God has taken me on an amazing journey of self-discovery, identity, and purpose that I have not experienced the two and a half decades prior.  Being a part of the things that God has been doing through Solidarity has been a huge aspect of my journey.  I have fallen in love with a neighborhood and community unlike anything I have experienced before.  This is the closest I have felt to God in my life.  God has opened me up to a refreshing understanding of what it means to live, to view his Kingdom, and to simply be.  There is an amazing group of friends and family who have been willing to walk with me through the good times and, even more importantly, the bad times.  After nearly 28 years of feeling lost and just “not exactly sure,” I have begun to feel at home with who I am.  I have stepped into this amazing journey and I have done it as a single man.  I have experienced the ease and the freedom of traveling through this without worry of another.  I think that there is some fear that, by being in a relationship, my journey will all of a sudden stop. 

If I were married and had children I would feel an overwhelming need to provide for them, to give them something more than I currently earn or have.  I am not too sure I would be able to continue to work at Solidarity in the capacity that I have been, or spend the amount of time in these neighborhoods that I can see God so blatantly working.   A healthy fear?  Ha, no, it’s not a healthy fear… not in the least bit.  I am not claiming that this is in any way rational.  But deep down there is a fear that a relationship or marriage might separate me from something beautiful that I have been experiencing. 

Obviously, I know that God works through couples.  My co-workers are living examples.  Tommy and Rachael are married with two small children and playing a huge part in the Kingdom.  Rosie is a single mom and rediscovering the depth of God’s love.  Matt and Beth dated for the last four years and just recently got married and are being blown away by the way He’s moving in their lives.  I guess I don’t doubt that God works in married couples, dating couples, or parents.  What I do doubt is myself.  I am not too sure I am strong enough to be in a relationship and not feel like I must provide for my family.  I don’t know if I have the faith that God will provide no matter what.  I am afraid that being in a relationship and married, I would break down get another job, spend less time in the neighborhoods, and miss out on what God is doing.  Maybe I am not strong enough to balance both.  Maybe I do not have the faith to allow God to take care of my future wife and family.  Maybe that is the fear that has unconsciously kept me single.

Most recently, I have become more aware of this fear.  I am slowly learning about why I am the way I am.  Singleness is not a curse, nor is it the utmost ideal for everyone.  Paul talks about the gift of singleness and the freedom that comes with being single.  It allows individuals to participate in the Kingdom in a unique way.  I feel like I have come to understand that perspective.  It makes sense to me.  I am starting to warm up to opposite perspective – understanding the value of participating in the Kingdom with a wife, with a family.  Maybe this does mean that sometime in the future I’ll get married, or maybe it just means I’ll continue to be single.  Who knows?  In the meantime feel free to fire away your questions.  Ha, go ahead and check in to see if I’m dating anyone or if there are any potential girls in my life.  But just know; you may get some confused answer in return.