I am not frozen through...

It was a beautiful week at sleepover camp. 75 - eleven year olds giggling, running, playing incredible games, squaredancing, making up skits, eating loads of camp food. I joined in on most of the activities.... i didn't sleep much... saw a red headed woodpecker for the first time ever...ate salad for EVERY meal (and even then, found out the hard way that the bottled dressing wasn't gluten free)... drank WAY too much hot chocolate... forgot to take even ONE picture!
My favorite game of the week? HUGE toss up but for sake of conversation I'll say it was "predator and prey" a game to teach the kids about what it feels like to be a forest animal... Madyline, Dillon and I ALMOST survived an entire season as rabbits... dodging foxes and eagles and finding enough water and shelter to thrive....

... darn that elusive food tree!

In other news... before we left, I was invited to a prescreening of a new movie called "The Second Chance" . Written and directed by Steve Taylor (of Chagall Guevara fame... and , my favorite christian album from high school ... yes, I was that cool!) The movie stars Michael W. Smith (cast as a worship leader for a giant comfortably rich suburban church). What makes me laugh about this pairing is that when I first discovered the only christian album I liked highschool (already a few years old by then... but shining with timeless fun!) I was absolutely blown away that there was more to "christian music" than Sandy Patty, Amy Grant and Smitty. I mean, I honestly didn't know. And then steve shows up in my world with that crazy disco that used to be a cute cathedral and I was up and dancing and rethinking the whole "I have to be wearing a conservative dress to listen to christian music" thing... and now... here they are together! My, how my prejudices are upturned over an over again. Process of refining I suppose.

ANYWAY... I've gotten off topic...the movie... You can flip over to the website to read the synopsis and see the trailer... it will do a much better job of selling you a ticket than I will... but I will encourage you to go see this movie, this weekend if possible (It opens today in select cities).

Not that the movie was that good. It could have stood to have the characters developed a bit more so you felt like you were a part of their lives and thus, cared what happened to them in the end.... but what DID strike me as phenomenal is that I truly believe that everyone can find themselves somewhere in this movie.

There was a Q&A time with Steve, , and the mayor of our fine town after the movie. It was beautiful and humbling to see our mayor struggling for words.

"I am more troubled than I have been in a long time" he said to Steve and to the small crowd "I could see myself in the role of the city official there... making decisions based on the good of the city instead of remembering the people who make up the city. It is so easy to do and I am guiltier than I'd like to be. .... . I am absolutely shredded here."

For me, it was a scene where Michael W. Smith had just spent his first day in the urban neighborhood. He was shaken and disturbed by what he had been seen. It shook his perfect world and left him conflicted and confused about all that he had believed was true about God and Christianity and himself. But later that night, after he left the ghetto for the suburbs, he and his fiancee were registering for wedding gifts at an upscale china store... thinking nothing of choosing a beautiful pattern for their upcoming life that came with the pricetag of $350 a setting.

Michael reaches into his pocket for something and pulls out a treasure he had been given by a little girl earlier that day. A picture she colored of her family on a paper plate. In the brightly colored picture with a childlike hand, she had drawn her family being pursued by a gunman. Michael held it out and the paper plate was directly next to the china plate his fiancee was holding as he begins swirling with the rush of emotions that has just seized his mind and his stomach.

... then he walks out of the shop.

That is where I saw myself. Billy and I have been in that spot. And we continue to return to that spot in the china shop more often than I'd like to admit. It is difficult to integrate the two worlds we have been a part of. There is one that cries out for love and justice and helping people in dire poverty. There is Africa and Heartside and families right here in our town that are struggling. There is also moments when we spend $50 eating a single meal at a restaurant or moments when I long for an $80 jacket or a new piece of camera equipment. How do these worlds mix? I believe they have to in a way... I just haven't always figured out how to balance them in a healthy way. Perhaps we'll have fuller answers when we return from Africa. I know that is part of our hopes and dreams and prayers.

In the mean time, I highly encourage you to go support this movie... just to let "the man" in hollywood know that we WANT good films being produced... ones that tell life like it really is. Ones that let the world know that, yes, christians are screwed up, but GOD isn't... and he is in the process of redeeming his world even in the middle of extreme brokenness... on all levels.

... and I highly encourage you to look for yourself in this movie. I have a feeling you are there... even for a moment... and then figure out for yourself what exactly that means.