Originally published 3/19/17
There is one Bible verse that never fails to make me cry. It was the New Testament lesson this morning. If you're Episcopalian, the cool thing is that no matter where you are, you heard it in church this morning too. We all read the same thing every Sunday. Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Romans 5: 1-5
That verse came to me on my first mission trip with teenagers from St. Peter's Episcopal Church. While mission trips are supposed to affect and change the lives of the teenagers participating in them, that summer, that trip and those teenagers changed my life.
It was the summer of 2008, and I was finally recovering from the brutal combination of recovery, divorce, separation from church and job loss that had started in 2002. Events like those, I discovered, happen swiftly, but to truly work through them and get enough distance from them to become sane again takes years.
Isabel and I had settled into a comfortable rhythm in life. We lived in a small cottage downtown, she was well entrenched at the neighborhood elementary school and active in Girls Scouts with her best friend; we spent weekends with Grandma and she spent regular time with her dad; I had pieced together meaningful jobs at the YWCA, Greenville Family Partnership and other non-profits, and we had settled into life in the Episcopal Church at St. Peter's.
The director of Youth Ministries left the position to work in their family business early that year, and the job was posted to the congregation. I was still living a very lean life, financially, and another part time job couldn't hurt, so I applied. How hard could it be to order Sunday School supplies and coordinate youth events, I thought?
This was a congregation I had come to love. The Pastor of the Lutheran Church who baptized Isabel could not abide the sin of divorce, and so cast us out without discussion. After floundering for a year at the very welcoming Baptists of Locust Hill, we settled at St. Peters, a suburban church with a medium size congregation - big enough to manage a good number of ministries, but not big enough to allow you to disappear among the pews. And, they took me in, as a divorced mom and wrapped their arms around Isabel and me.
And then, they hired me, a divorced, recovering alcoholic, underemployed single mother, to lead their children.
There were a handful of teenagers who had grown up together in the church at that time, and who were all coming of age together. They had enthusiastic parents who supported their efforts with both time and money. So we set about spending time together that year. We didn't have regular weekly meetings, but rather depended on a program of special events that the kids and parents regularly planned and that they looked forward to. There was a flag football game and chili cookoff with other area youth groups, a lock-in to stay up all night and play their favorite "Underground church" game, a ski weekend in Gatlinburg, retreats at the diocesan camp and fundraising carwashes and lasagna sales that supported a biennial mission trip planned through the church's province - a geographic territory of Southern churches that organized a major event. That year's trip was to Bay St. Louis, Miss, to work on houses that were still unrepaired from Hurricane Katrina, which swept across the Gulf and into New Orleans 3 years prior, in 2005.
So I signed us up, we raised the money, rented the vans, and hit the road for the day-long drive to the gulf coast of Mississippi. I took 9 teenagers and two other adults. I had no idea what I was in for. I had never been on a mission trip.
Front row: Marla, Samantha, Ben, Brian Back row: Burns, Kirsten, Kathleen, Trey, Weston, Ashley, Austin They look tired and hot because we had just finished four days of mission work in Mississippi. In June. I thought South Carolina was hot in June.
I grew up in a church that had, depending on the year, between two and three teenagers, two of whom were me and my brother Karl. In high school I went to youth group with my friend Shelly at the United Methodist Church, but I don't remember anything regular about it. Only that we did a haunted house for several years, which was fun, mischievous, and not very Christ centered. I don't blame them for that, it just was what it was.
We pulled up to Christ Episcopal Church, which was just across the street from the beach. Cool. But the only thing left of the church was its bell tower, and it was not recommended to swim in the gulf, as there were still concerns about the contaminants from the Hurricane.
Left, Christ Episcopal's bell tower at the time. You can see the corner of a labyrinth, which had been painted on the church's foundation.
A Quonset hut served as the temporary church building, and behind it were a series of 4 or 5 government issued Quonset huts that served as quarters to whichever group was volunteering its time to help, still, three years later. There were bunks for boys and girls, a latrine trailer with serviceable showers, a makeshift kitchen and dining hall hut, and a picnic shelter.
You may remember images of Hurricane Katrina, the most famous of which was the group of black families stranded on the I-10 bridge. In New Orleans, the most significant event was the failure of the levees, which caused flooding after the hurricane, in the most poverty-ridden parts of the city; the National Guard essentially blocked the poor, mostly black community in the flood zone, and didn't allow them to seek shelter in the more affluent parts of the city which were, literally, on higher ground.
What most people didn't see was the destruction it caused before it got to New Orleans, all across the gentle curve of the Gulf Coast, which includes Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, before it gets to Louisiana and Texas. But the epicenter, some might tell you, occurred in Bay St. Louis. Just across the bridge in Pass Christian, antebellum homes continued to look at the water. In Bay St. Louis, there were a lot of porch steps leading to nowhere.
This is what the coast of Bay St. Louis looked like three years after the hurricane, right. South Carolinians remember 1989's Hurricane Hugo, the epicenter of which hit McClellanville, a small fishing hamlet north of Charleston, that no one's ever heard of. Just like Bay St. Louis.
The devastation was gut wrenching and unbelievable, even for the teenagers, who had all lived relatively sheltered, middle class lives in the Upstate of South Carolina. In addition to the shock of the devastation was another factor we didn't talk about: the heat. Now, we're from South Carolina. We know heat and humidity; it is in our DNA. But I had never experienced heat and humidity like this. It was so hot, we didn't talk about it. Because you couldn't. Because if you did, you would die of heat stroke in a minute. It had to remain unspoken.
During the day, we worked various jobs, all outside, of course. I worked with a group on the porch of a house. Everyday we met up for breakfast, assembled for morning prayer, then made a bag lunch and headed out to our work sites. We were all mixed up, so I only have one teenager from my church in my group. I kinda liked that. It made everyone get to know someone new.
We framed this porch, right. It's harder than it you might think. We were lucky that Dylan from Aiken, the kid on the right in the red shirt, knew how to work a band saw. Sam, the skinny girl on the deck laughing, went to St. Peter's.
We measured, cut, and hammered, and boxed in the front porch of a home, and screened the back. And we ran a sewer line from the house to the street. Me, another adult and four teenagers. Seems odd that we did that now, but we did. It was cool what you can accomplish in 100+ degree heat and humidity with only the love of Christ to bring you together.
At night, after dinner, we met for worship. And by worship, I don't mean Episcopal church service. Even though this was an Episcopal event, it was very evangelical in nature, and St. Peter's kids were not. Comically not. We would stand and sing for an hour. Sam kept track of the number of songs once with a marker on her wrist. At number 11, she was about to lose her mind. I remember laughing with her, and encouraging her to continue keeping track. The teenage boys - Trey, Weston, Brian and Austin tried desperately to look cool, walking a fine line between required participation and embarrassing dread. Girls, as always, have more fun as they are less intimidated by the cool factor. Still, it was evangelically over the top for these kids.
But it wasn't for me. It was exactly where I needed to be, at that moment in my life.
Our verse for the week was to study the four words from Paul's admonition to the Romans: suffering, endurance, character and hope. Each night we studied one of those words. Because, duh, that's what happened here, in this place: they suffered a devastating hurricane, were enduring the aftermath, through which they would build character, and proceed daily in hope.
Which, again, was exactly where I was in my life. And these kids were teaching me about it. Not in an overt kind of a way, but just in a, we're here with you, in this moment, kind of a way. They were there, not for me, and not likely even for themselves. Their parents knew it was something they needed to do, to form themselves as Christians and generally good people who can empathize with those who suffer devastating events. Of any kind.
I laughed so much that week that by the end of it, my cheeks hurt. I am not exaggerating.
I remember being filled with the spirit, of the Holy kind, of course, but also of a different kind. Proud of those teenagers for suffering the unbearable heat; for enduring ridiculous evangelical worship; building character by learning difficult and unfamiliar tasks; and hoping for an ice cream treat on the way back to base camp. Those are silly things of course, but were likely real to those teenagers.
Each night a group had to make presentation on the word of the night. Weston's group was Character. Weston, at left, now a college graduate, is definitely a man of character today.
I remember being with those kids. Just being. They were silly and complaintive, as teenagers are, but willing to participate. Sometimes just being with someone is enough. I think, we always want to say the right thing. I know I often do. Because I want to make it better. If I can just say the right thing, in the right way, (and, if the person will do exactly as I say) then it will all be alright. In my time, and my way, which I think is right.
I have learned that I can't say the right thing (though I do still try, don't get me wrong). And those kids certainly didn't know what was going on with me. I was just this weird adult. But being in their presence, in which they were suffering, enduring, building character and learning to put their hope in something else, was healing to me, as was the deep study of that verse. I had suffered, I was enduring, my character was being formed, and I was putting my hope in Christ for the rest of it.
I developed a deep bond with those kids. They are forever part of my spirit.
They are all adults now.
Sam is an artist, with a canvas of tattoos and a penchant for heavy metal. Kathleen graduated Clemson and works for Furman. She wears high heels and I see her at women's events in Greenville. Weston suffered a devastating blow when his dad died of cancer a couple years later, but he finished USC and is working in Washington, DC. There are always pictures of him with cute girls on Facebook. Trey is a dad, besotted by a little girl he is watching grow up.
Ashely just married this summer; she's the daughter of our chaperone, Burns, and wasn't a regular member of our church, but she was a bright light in our group, and I know she will be bright light to her new husband. Kirsten is adulting as a bookseller at the new hip downtown store. I've lost track of Marla...does anyone know where she is? Ben was an adult then, but I think recently has endured a bit, as he's celebrated his first year in recovery; he and I talked about that a lot, and he's finally in a place where he can endure and work on his character - I trust you've always had hope, Ben.
Brian is on his way to getting married, and Austin's in graduate school.
Every time I hear Paul's letter to the Romans in which he encourages them and reminds them to suffer and endure to build character and hope, I think of those kids, and so many more at St. Peters. But this group especially, and it fills my soul with joy, and brings a tear to my eye. They were there with me as I suffered and endured, and helped me build character and hope in knowing that the love of Christ in us and through us, will conquer all.
I hope in their adult world that they know that hope does not disappoint, and that they are filled with joy. All the time. I love you all.
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