I had the privilege of serving as a room leader at Gauntlet 2016. In my young adult life I was a youth leader at two different churches and I even lead a diocese-wide youth event in Louisiana. Other life demands took priority as I entered my mid 30’s so my youth leadership became focused upon coaching and a four year stint as a scoutmaster. Gauntlet is our church’s youth camp, but it is youth camp to the extreme. There were over 5300 youth at the Gauntlet with another 1700+ room leaders and support staff. We descended upon Daytona Beach in 129 buses and filled 9 beach-front hotels. And for the first time we filled the entire Ocean Center auditorium.
I intend on posting several pics and a few highlights from the week in this blog over the next few weeks. The Gauntlet is an environment where youth and leader alike hear clear teaching on how to become a Christian and what it means to live the life God has created us for. It provides ample opportunity to speak with caring leaders and fellow sojourners about life’s trials, challenges, failures, and triumphs in a safe place. Within this context each person is given multiple opportunities to identify and take their next step in the faith journey of life.
This was my second time to serve. And I almost didn’t go. My experience the first time was enough of a challenge that I questioned whether the Lord wanted me there. I left the date open on my calendar and I continued to ask the Lord to make it clear if I was to attend. About 4 weeks prior the Lord gave me the nudge that I was to go and He provided two very clear instructions. “Don’t have expectations on how your students are to respond” and “Trust Me.” So I signed up. I am so glad that I did.
That I had chosen the right path was confirmed for me on the bus ride down. Everyone traveled down in “pods” of three or four buses. We were the first pod of buses from our campus which also happens to be the furthest from Daytona Beach. Just outside Jacksonville the bus in front of ours broke down. The failure on the bus disabled their air conditioning, so our bus leader asked us to make room for the folks from the other bus. Our boys immediately moved to the back of the bus tripling up in seats or standing in the aisle. We spent the next 3+ hours waiting on one of the other buses to complete the trip down to Daytona and then return to pick up the passengers from the disabled bus so our pod could continue.
The AC in our bus was stretched to the max with the extra body heat and the lack of air movement over the AC coils, so it was not very comfortable in the back where the boys were all scrunched together. But during that entire time there was no whining or complaining. The boys chatted. I got to know several of the young men like Hawk, CJ, Bernard, Nick, Sean (or maybe Shawn), Drey, Marcelous, Dillon, and others. For three hours we sweated together, watching bus after bus pass us as we sat on the side of the road with the Florida sun beaming in the windows… and the mood never turned sour with self pity. I’m chuckling to myself right now because I was, and still am, pumped at how mature the boys handled the situation.
Although I didn’t meet and begin getting to know them until we arrived in Daytona Beach, my two roommates and new friends, Dylan and Greg were among those on the bus who handled the situation so well. And they proved to be just as mature and good-natured as my initial impression of the other young men on bus 5. It was truly a blessing to spend the week with these two guys, to get to know them, and to talk about what our next steps in growing closer to Jesus are.
That’s enough of a story for today’s post. So without further ado I share the first of my Gauntlet 2016 pics.
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