hollyreddy

Quite recently our team was lucky enough to get to do a program at a church in Prairie Du Chien in Wisconsin.  Before the programs we put on, we typically walk around and chat with the people coming into the worship space.  I saw and heard a specially abled young man in the back of the sanctuary yelling and then being taken outside by his caretaker.  They came back in after he had calmed down and sat in the back pew.  I felt drawn to this group of people (it was the young man (Robbie), his caretaker, and the caretaker’s wife) so I walked over.  As soon as I got within twenty feet of the young man he motioned for me to come sit by him.  I walked over and sat beside him and started to converse with him…well, more like ask him a bunch of questions that his caretaker answered.  I wasn’t sure if he even knew what I was asking him.  I couldn’t get a response out of him even with super easy questions with different ways of answering (point at your favorite color- with a sheet of colors in front of him).  I was sure he couldn’t comprehend anything that was going on.  I spoke with his caretaker and the wife for a little bit about their lives and then it was time to start the program.  I made my way to the front and we began playing the first song.  Immediately I looked up and Robbie was standing up dancing and clapping while everyone else was sitting and staring at us.  As the service continued, I would look back and see a huge smile on Robbie’s face with his arms raised while he danced around to the praise music.  When we all joined together in prayer at the end of the program, as we were switching places for the last song, I looked up and Robbie wasn’t dancing.  He didn’t even have his arms up!  His head was bowed down and he was nodding his head.  At the end of the prayer he looked up and gave a big old, “AMEN!”  After the program I went back to talk to the same group to continue a conversation that we had started and Robbie held his arms out to give me a big hug! The other two apologized for some reason and continued on to tell me that he always wants to give hugs to everyone. Then he saw a balloon and ran excitedly toward the balloon.  The other two had to chase after him and decided it was time to go home.

After everyone left to go home and I was waiting for my host mom to come and pick me up, I had some time to think over the night.  I realized that I had labeled Robbie as a non-responsive young man with incredible amounts of joy.  I first took a look at how he showed joy at the smallest things in life.  He exemplified true joy and reminded me what that looked like!  Then I realized that he also was accepting and truly loving of everyone he came in contact with.  He just wanted to show everyone else love-even if they gave him mean looks and everything!  What an example of what it’s like to love EVERYONE-even the ones who persecute us!  He was such a great example of how we Christians are supposed to act.  He didn’t just put on a show- he truly had that joy inside of him and he really did want to give everyone a hug with no other intentions in mind but to love on people!  And then I remembered that he had responded to worship and knew what was going on enough to know that he was praising God through every hand clap, dance move, and sound he made.  He looked up to God and not to everyone else around him.  He didn’t care that at many times he was the only one dancing around.  He praised like no one else mattered but God…which just added on to the list of why he was an amazing example to me.  We shouldn’t let what others think about us hinder our worship and our Christian behavior!  Robbie also knew when we were praying and was completely receptive to that connection to our God, too!  I totally had a Matthew 25 experience (ya know…where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats and says that when we serve the least of these we are also serving Him). I saw Christ in Robbie-someone who the world would typically push aside and look down on!  Robbie reminded me of what being in a relationship with Jesus is all about!

In case you didn’t know, Youth Encounter teams DO NOT sleep overnight in the van.  Yes, it’s the closest thing that we know that can be considered our “home” for the year, but it doesn’t mean we live in it.  Instead, gracious people and families open their homes to us so that we have a place to stay.  Host families often tell us to, “make ourselves at home,” which would be all well and good if we were actually at our own home, but when staying with other people we, or I (at least), can’t feel completely comfortable and relaxed.  Thus, it’s a rare occasion that I actually feel “at home” in a host home.  Our last booking before our Memorial Day break was in Mountain Lake, Minnesota.  It was so out in the sticks that I didn’t even have cell phone reception within an hour drive.  We got there and an older man drove up in his car, saying that he was there to pick up two girls.  The pastor came out and sent Jean and Dana with him.  Another family came to pick up the boys and Laura Joy went home with a different family.  My host family didn’t show up…they were running a little late so I went over to the pastor’s house and played with his 1 year old daughter.  Several cups of fake tea, building demolitions, and rounds of peek-a-boo later my host family showed up.  The family consisted of a mom and dad with four children.  The eldest was a girl, followed by a boy and two girls!  That is exactly how my family is!  I found out later that the age gaps between the children were the same amount of years as in my family too!  But the cooler part is that they were 13 years old and younger…my favorite age group to hang out with!  As I got to know the family, I kept finding so many similarities in personalities between my family and theirs- they were literally my family away from home!  The only difference is that they lived on a farm and partook in farm-like responsibilities.  I had such an amazing time at this particular host home!  I had a little brother and little sisters (and that’s how we all got along!).  I played Just Dance with them all, played cards, got my toenails painted (they glow in the dark now!), my hair got brushed and braided,  and I got to experience a little bit of life on the farm.  The first day I was there, the family went out to the chicken coup to gather their eggs and invited me inside.  I went in.  It was dusty and it smelled pretty bad too.  Before I knew it, my little sisters were running around catching chickens and showing them to me.  My host mom explained to me the proper way to catch a chicken- you have to put your hands over the entire wing and a little bit beneath so that your chicken can’t flap away or peck at you.  She let me pet the chicken she had in her hands and then handed it over to me.  Of course I missed a little bit of the wing so it flapped and I had to let go.  Then it was my turn to catch a chicken.  I did, successfully and didn’t even get hurt!!!!  After the eggs were all gathered, my host siblings wanted to show me their cows.  I met all four cows and petted them.  My host mom told me that if you stuck your thumb out that the cows would even suck your thumb.  At this point I was already filthy from chicken catching so I figured what the heck?-I’ll do it just for the experience.  I mean, when else would a girl from Philly ‘burbs get to have a cow suck her thumb?  It was the weirdest thing but it was so much fun!  Then we had to go inside to wash our hands and get out of the rain.  The next evening, after the girls had heard us play the sheep song, we had a campfire outside.  We roasted marshmallows, talked, laughed, and sang some songs-mainly the sheep song (for at least an hour).  I realized that I had the same sense of humor as my host dad so we had a great time laughing at the same things (usually I would be the only one laughing!)…maybe he laughed at my bad puns to make me feel better, though… I felt so at home with this host family!!!!  I had to get up and leave super early in order to leave on time to get to VBS training.  My host siblings got up (school is out) really early to say bye.  Before I left, I said, “Bye host sister, *insert name here*!” to each of the girls and one of them stopped me mid-hug and said, “host sister?  Don’t you mean real sister?!  We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, right?”  It was the cutest thing ever!  Yea…I guess we are real brothers and sisters in Christ!

So that’s all for this blog!  Blessings to all of my brothers and sisters in Christ!!!

Howdy y’all!  In our travels we get to experience other people’s family lives and get to see different ways that parents raise their children.  Quite recently I was blessed with the opportunity to live with a family of four- Mom, Dad, a 5 year old girl (Claire), and a 2 year old boy (Teddy).  They were absolutely adorable!  Each night that we were there, Jean and I got to read a bedtime story to Claire.  The first night it was just us putting her to bed after a story about a boy who didn’t share very well and in the end got eaten by a snake…(I know…just a little morbid for a children’s book…).  The second night Claire’s father joined us to hear his favorite book (and I also suspect he wanted to see our reaction to the book).  We read a story called, “Walter, The Farting Dog.”  It was hilarious!  Jean and I could barely read it without laughing!  At the end of the book, her father came over and sat on her bed.  He asked us to join us for bedtime prayers.  We expected that we would have to pray the night out but were pleasantly surprised to hear a little 5 year old girl’s voice thanking God for everything she had received that day including us and her family.  She then continued to ask God’s protection and that he would, “calm her heart and quiet her mind.”  It was such an experience to see a family still praying before bedtime…(I know this is redundant but it’s awesome) as a FAMILY!!!!

We just arrived in Monticello, Illinois (pronounced “Monti-sello”) and I must say-I am having quite the experience despite the town’s seemingly boring look.  I had one of the most enlightening and fascinating talks with my host family here…it kind of reminded me how much I love learning in general.  First you must know that I have a history with asking the most random questions when I don’t know what else to say.  I guess you could say that God blessed me with the ability to think creatively on the spot (or cursed me with it…whichever it is).  One time when my brain was being “creatively random” during a conversation with a group of youth from the suburbs I asked what their favorite tractor was.  Much to my surprise they answered rather seriously with an indecisive, “John Deere.”  I’ve tried to forget that incident of my awkward randomness since then.  However at this host home, my host dad told us that he worked for the county agriculture department and I couldn’t help myself…I asked him the infamous question with the actual curiosity of what other brands of tractors there were.  We ended up getting into a huge conversation about the different kinds of tractors there are and what they do in the whole farming process.  I got a huge wake-up call during that conversation, too, about how closed-minded I am and how much I assume.  I thought that we grew all of that corn just to eat!  Turns out the huge fields we drive by in the middle of nowhere don’t contain any edible corn-that corn gets processed into other things we use like fuel and citric acid!  And I can’t believe how technologically advanced farming is nowadays!  I thought farmers were guys that had to drive tractors all day in the heat of the sun!  Did you know that they have GPS’s in the tractors that align themselves with where they are plowing or harvesting on the field?  That means that the farmers bring books and stuff to do in the tractors while the tractor drives itself!!!  AND they have air-conditioning, radio, and some even have installed dish network TV’s in their tractors!  They don’t just farm in the day, too.  They farm at night because the tractors have bright headlights that allow them to work in the dark!  It completely blew my mind how complex the farming/owning land system is!  I will never look at our farmers and agriculture workers  the same way again!  They are sooo important to our everyday lives and they are way more technologically advanced than I could have ever imagined!  I was just amazed at the fact that I bonded with my host family over tractors and farming (which I wouldn’t typically call interesting) and completely loved it!  Not to mention, they were the only folks who could seriously answer my dumb question about tractor brands and do it complete justice!

Captive Free West Lakes has had the opportunity to go to some pretty awesome places including Chicago, Milwaukee, the twin cities, St. Louis, the Wisconsin Dells, and a ton of really small towns with extra huge hearts!  One of our more recent bookings landed us in Campbell Hill, IL, a town with a population of 350 people.  We were coming here from Flanagan, IL (the place where I got pulled over by the police while walking and got called old…see my other blog) and we started off on a highway.  The GPS then took us onto another “highway” that was a good bit narrower and had no lines.  It looked pretty sketchy, but apparently it was a legitimate Illinois highway!  While in the van Dana, who was navigating, and me were joking about how we were going to end up on a gravel highway next or something crazy silly like that.  Lo and behold- about 10 more miles down the road we came to a “Road Closed in 4 miles” sign.  Dana then had to press the detour button on the GPS which had us turn off onto a gravel “road” (it had an official green road sign and everything) named Jackrabbit road.  We didn’t realize until we were actually on the road that it was in the blast zone of the mine right next to the road, which made it ten times sketchier and more ironic.  Then Dana and I were joking about how it couldn’t get much worse than having to drive to a booking on gravel and dirt roads!  With about a mile left on Jackrabbit road, the road changed from gravel to a grassy field with two ruts of dirt for the tires on incoming vehicles.  There was a gravel cross road right where Jackrabbit road crossed over from gravel to grass and dirt, so by the request of the Vehicle Safety Manager on our team (Russ), we took the other road.  What surprised us, however, was that where Jackrabbit road crossed over from gravel to dirt, there was another road sign that still made it clear that it was, indeed, a road!!!  On the cross road as we were passing a house a small puppy ran toward our huge van and trailer, barking and not backing down.  I didn’t want to run the tiny thing over so I stopped the van while its owner made her way to the dog to get him out of the way.  So now we can add an embarrassing face off with a small puppy vs. our huge 15 passenger van with a trailer where the puppy won to our list of road trip issues just on our way to the small town of Campbell Hill, IL!  Ahead we saw two children playing with a ball outside.  At this point everyone was awake and rather amused at our situation.  Laura Joy joked that with our luck, their ball would run into the road and we’d have to dodge children at play.  Guess what happened???!!!  Their ball bounced into the road and we had to stop once again so that the children could return to a safe playing location. Once we finally got back on paved roads, they were so tiny that our van and trailer took up 1.5 lanes.  We got a little worried when a bus came the other way as well as a tractor dragging along oversized farming equipment and a truck-but everything went ok.  We just pulled over hoping that the van and trailer would not get stuck in the ditch in the side of the road and let all of these things pass.  (We didn’t get stuck )  Way too many miles of road, a horse and buggy, and the GPS telling us to turn right onto non-existent roads later we safely got to the church…with 5 minutes to spare!!!  I’m pretty sure the only obstacles I didn’t encounter were deer and snow, which oddly enough were pretty much the only obstacles they trained us to handle at training.  I guess this proves that west lakes 1) has a really good vehicle safety manager who can make great last minute decisions 2) our deductive reasoning (applying common sense to driving) skills are good, 3) Mark is really good at allotting the perfect amount of drive time to our schedule, and 4) God has a sense of humor!

Part of our ministry includes going to nursing homes to sing, play, and talk with them.  Rarely do we ever get the opportunity to stay overnight in a nursing home, however we have stayed at one nursing home twice thus far in our year.  The Good Samaritan Home is located in small town Illinois, nestled in the midst of a ton of farmland.  The population is about 1100 people, so it’s a pretty small town!  Anyways, last time we were here it was wintertime and we got the van a little stuck in the snow, but with the help of some of the people at the home (employees, haha…NOT the residents!!!) we got the van un-stuck.  This time, however it is springtime so we don’t really need to worry about that!  One other notable thing that occurred during our last stay here was our encounters with our neighbor.  We were staying in the apartment hallway in the nursing home and as soon as we got into the hallway, we were welcomed by a spunky lady who claims to be in her 80’s by the name of Deloris.  She asked if we needed help loading in or anything and we had it all so we replied with a no.  But that didn’t stop her!  She waddled on into our apartment and began to show us around- where the light switches were, how to use the shower, and really the whole tour that a host home would typically give us.  She then proceeded to invite us into her apartment to show us around and chat with us.  Three of us girls went in and weren’t seen for another hour and a half.  She told us about her kids and her grandkids, where she used to live, about her late husband, and about her life in general.  We could tell that she just loved having the company and having someone to talk with.  We had a wonderful time with her as well!

This time as we were en route to the nursing home, our team had been saying how much we were looking forward to seeing Deloris!  As we stepped foot into the apartment hall we looked at Deloris’ room with horror in our eyes.  Her name was not on the door and the door was open for us (as an empty apartment to stay in).  Our mood went from happy to be back and giddy to a solemn “Oh No!” feel.  Of course in that icky mood we had to go do our evening program.  With long faces we entered the room and got set up.  We looked up and saw none other than our good friend Deloris!!!  Immediately we lightened up and worshipped with the residents.  Afterward we got to say hello to Deloris!  She was so happy to see us!  She remembered all of us (which is impressive for an Alzheimer’s patient) and was extremely excited to show us her new place!  Laura Joy, Jean, and I followed her to her new room where she showed all of her new pictures and updated us on her life!  Before we left, Deloris really wanted to give us something in return for our ministry.  We assured her that she didn’t need to do that, but she insisted.  Keep in mind that in nursing homes the residents don’t exactly have a lot at their disposal, both monetarily and possession-wise.  She gave us a bunch of bananas and $20, saying that it’s only a little but it’s what she could give.  It kind of reminded me of the story in Luke 21 when the widow gives 2 small coins…she gave what she had to live on!  Just another amazing example of how we’ve seen God through people on the road…even if it is Him in a frail, spunky 81 year-old!!!

A lot of times when I blog it’s about some profound experience I had.   That is all well and good, but there are other not so profound moments that I have that I never write about.  My team gets to witness these occurrences quite often but my friends, family, and sponsors never get to.   That doesn’t seem quite fair to me.  So out of the spirit of allowing the true me to come through in these blogs, this blog will be about some of those embarrassing/funny moments I’ve had  on team. 

                As clearly denoted in my first blogs, the Lord provided me with chapstick when I had none.  That chapstick came in handy so many times!  I kept it in my pocket wherever I went!  Unfortunately it was in my pocket when I was trying to get a toilet to flush with minimal water pressure.  Yep- it fell into the toilet and I had to reach in to get it before I could flush.  (EEEEEWWWWWW!!!) Once I got the water pressure up enough to flush the toilet, I went to wash my hands.  Like any normal person would do in any bathroom, I turned the handle to the sink-only nothing happened when I turned it!!!  No water came out no matter which handle I turned!  I got one of my teammates, Laura Joy, to come and try to turn the handles and she was unsuccessful as well.  At this point I was freaking out as the germophobe of the team because I had unclean toilet water on my hands and I couldn’t get the sink in the basement to work.  So using the brain got gave me, I remembered that there was yet another few sinks upstairs on the main floor!  Faster than Flash on caffeine, I bolted upstairs and lunged for the kitchen sink.  Laura Joy tried the upstairs bathroom sink while I frantically turned the knobs on the sink.  Neither of us had any luck.  NOW I had unclean hands, I had to throw away my chapstick, couldn’t get any of the sinks to work, AND I had to tell my host mom that I may or may not have broken the water in the house.  Thankfully she handled it very calmly and took a few water bottles out of the fridge for me to temporarily wash my hands with and looked into the water issue.  Turns out I had accidentally shut off the water in the house somehow!   The good news was that around a half hour later the water came back on and I could scrub my hands with really hot water and oodles of antibacterial hand wash AND that a different host family had given me a chapstick so that I would have a backup in case a tragedy such as this would occur!  However the chapstick story doesn’t end here…  At another host home, I set my only remaining chapstick on the sink while I brushed my teeth and I knocked it onto the floor where it proceeded to roll into the heating duct never to be seen again.  :-)   The End.  (of this story…for the time being.  Since these events occurred I have been home and have restocked my chapstick supply )

                The second story I will share with you is a story about my lack of common sense at times.  I will share the lesson I learned with you so that you don’t have to learn it the way I did.  It was almost 60 degrees out and sunny in Crawfordsville, Indiana giving me the sudden urge to drive the van with the windows down!  Unfortunately I was having difficulty seeing out the windshield due to a bird who had decided that our front window looked like the loo and thus did his or her business upon it.  But lo!  Cars and vans come with this handy feature that allows one to wash the front window of the vehicle with the press of a button without touching the window or the filth that is upon it!  I decided to make use of the window-washing feature, forgetting that we had the windows open.  Needless to say, the bird poop was no longer on the window (which was great!), but it was all over me in the mix of dirty window washing fluid that came in my open window!  And of course, being the germ freak I am, I immediately felt unclean and couldn’t get home fast enough to shower and wash my clothes!!!  Don’t let this happen to you- CLOSE YOUR WINDOWS when cleaning your windows-no matter which one you are cleaning and what method you are using to clean it!!!

                I’m officially counting experiences like those two as “humbling experiences” when I realize that I am but a human and I make silly mistakes all the time. 

Blessings and peace of the Lord be with you all!

On Captive Free West Lakes we like to celebrate each other- it’s a really healthy practice that we started from the beginning of our year together on team.  On each team member’s birthday we like to spend the day doing whatever that person wants to do and affirming him or her.  That team member also determines in what way the team uses that month’s team outing money and it has been a lovely team bonding experience every birthday celebration!  We ran into a problem in December, though.  Both Jean and I have birthdays in December and hers was first so she got December as her birthday month.  I had a birthday over our Christmas break but the team still wanted to celebrate together after Christmas!  We had planned originally to celebrate in January, but due to our event season schedule, we really needed our days off in January to recuperate.  Then we wanted to celebrate in February but due to our busy schedule that wasn’t possible.  Finally, in March, we got to celebrate.  It was completely worth the wait!!!!  The day that we celebrated we were in Minneapolis staying with former teamers, Sarah, Kara, and Fig!  Not only did we get to hang out with them, but we also got to do some really fun things!

First we went to the Mall of America and got to play with computer games in the Microsoft store and play with legos!  For someone who loves legos, seeing MOA’s huge lego displays was like a kid in a candy store!  I had so much fun playing with the legos they had sitting out!  In the Microsoft store, they had giant tablets with 4-player games that Dana, Jean, and I had a blast playing together!  Then we raced cars on another tablet (Russ, Mark, Dana, and I) and I won!!!!  For someone with NO gaming experience, I felt very accomplished!

The highlight of my day was that night at a bowling alley.  Laura Joy had arranged for a whole bunch of Youth Encounter alumni and staff to be there to celebrate with me!  I had so much fun bowling with everyone!  They all seemed to enjoy themselves as well (which was an added bonus—I got smiles for my birthday!!!!!   )!  As if having everyone there wasn’t enough, Sarah and Kara brought two cakes!!!  One was a funfetti/chocolate cake and the other was a veggie/hummus cake (a bowl of hummus with a few candles in it surrounded by fresh raw veggies)!  I didn’t even ask for that for my birthday!!!  That surprise made the night even better!  And then it got even more awesome…Paul, a youth encounter staff member, came with a butterfly piñata!!!!  At the end of the night I was soooo happy to have spent the day with my team having fun and was speechless at how amazing the night was!

Gee….I guess I’m really blessed to have an amazing team and awesome friends who really love me

Blessings and peace of the Lord be with you all!!!

Hello everyone!  I just thought I’d share a few more words about some really nifty experiences on team I’ve had thus far!  The first thing you need to know is that I’m kind of a germaphobe and my team can attest to that with certainty!  The second thing you need to know (and probably already know) is that children are germ farms.  Therefore, the schools that are filled with these “germ harvesting sites” are like asking a teenage girl attending her senior prom in her nice gown and groomed hair and nails to jump into a mud pit and roll around a few times.  It just one of the germiest places I can think of!  At a school/church in Chicago (yep-the same one that I made the second-grader cry in), these germ-infested angels were just what I needed!  I shall further explain:

Being on team, we all are also part of a musical group that each of us have roles on.  As you probably already have figured out, LJ is our sound tech who we couldn’t sound great without, Dana is our keyboardist who provides the actual background music for people to sing to and gives the music that extra element and she is also a singer, Jean plays the bass giving those who experience Christ through feeling the music those bass vibrations, making the music sound amazing, Russ is the drummer who keeps the beat and gives the music drive, which holds the music together, and Mark is our guitarist who also provides the actual accompaniment for the singing and praising that is essential and he is also a singer.  I sometimes struggle with my role on the musical part of team.  I just stand behind a microphone and sing the words on the screen that everyone is already singing.  I’m not important in lifting God’s name up through our music ministry-that thought goes through my head every once in a while and I have to remind myself that those thoughts are just Satan attacking my ministry.  But anyway, while I was in Chicago at this booking I had received an email from the office giving some feedback from events that I had asked for.  It was great to have the suggestions we did and to receive encouragement in the areas we did well in!  One particular comment started to eat at me, though, and it was regarding giving others a chance to sing.  As the lead singer in the band aspect of our team, I felt a bit saddened and tried to picture myself standing in the back of the stage playing the cowbell or something odd while Mark and Dana took over lead singing.  It just didn’t sit well with me and I began to struggle again with my importance on team as the lead singer.  I didn’t feel very loved because of one comment that I took WAY too much to heart and probably took out of context, applying my own meanings and assumptions to it.  Needless to say, I was quite sad about my “inability to contribute to my team and serve God with them as a team”.  (that was what I concluded from the comment…ridiculous, right???)  Anyhoo, just as I was feeling down trodden and unimportant internally, I received the coolest thing!  It was after spending lunchtime with the children on French toast day, getting to know them and talking with them all.  As they were going back to class and I was waving farewell to all of them, a few of the second graders I was talking with gave me a hug.  Before I knew it, all 50 + children in the cafeteria were surrounding me giving me the hugest group hug I had ever experienced.  Yep…that’s right-I was surrounded by a bunch of kids who MAYBE had stuck their hands in their mouths or up their nose, touched something disgusting, maybe didn’t wash their hands after using the bathroom, or sneezed into their hands (or even coughed WITHOUT covering at all!!!), but DEFINITELY were showing love to me and cheering me up right when I needed it desperately!  I loved every second of that unsanitary hug and it was the most loved and needed I felt in quite some time!  It’s amazing how God provided such an extreme sign of how I very much so belong on team doing ministry and how that ministry is mainly offstage!

All in all, I guess Jesus didn’t carry a bottle of hand sanitizer around with him when he was healing those with leprosy or other contagious diseases…so what am I so worried about all the time?  Hugs=love, not germs!  Anyways, keep sharing the love of Christ!  Give a hug to someone-you may not know how much he or she needs it right then and there!  Blessings and peace of the Lord be with you all!

Recently Captive Free West Lakes took a little gallivant to Chicago!  We went to a church and Christian school there to do a chapel at each of the two campuses the school had as well as to do a program there for the entire community!  Usually for chapels the team is asked only to lead a short time of fun interactive worship with a message, but with this booking, they asked us to visit the classrooms of each of the grades.  This was an ingenious idea because it gave us a chance to be in and around the youth of the school instead of just the super excited and cheesy worship leaders we sometimes feel that we come across as.  Thus we did our chapel at both campuses of the school and started out by visiting the more inner city classrooms and then went back to the main campus to visit a few more classrooms there before lunch time.

At lunch time I had flashbacks to elementary school when I forgot my lunch and had to go to the “buyer’s” lunch line.  I stood in line with my try and got the most delicious French toast, sausage, potatoes, and applesauce.  Then came the choice:  to sit with the teachers or to sit with the children…  To my own surprise (especially with all of the sneezing and coughing I saw going on in the classrooms), I chose to sit with the children!  Immediately as I sat down at one of the tables I was inundated with random questions and stories from a bunch of energetic second-graders!  Even with my extremely fast-paced subject-changing mind, I couldn’t even keep up with every conversation that was going on between me and all of them (an extravert’s heaven!!!)! All through lunch I had really great conversations with them about everything from the monsters in the closet to icky older brothers and favorite things!  Sitting very quietly and patiently was a little girl in the corner of the table.  When lunch time was nearing its end, she asked me if I would come sit and talk to her for a little bit.  Much to the entire table’s dismay, I went over to her, ignoring all the other conversations and chatted with her.  She started the conversation out by asking why I would want to go away from my mommy and daddy for a year and do what I was doing.  I answered her by saying that God, through Jesus Christ, His Son saved my life and loved me even when I did bad things and I wanted to share that same love, hope, and joy with others.  She wasn’t satisfied with that answer and asked what I did that was so bad that I needed someone to save my life for.  I told her in little kid language that I was very mean to myself, mean to others, and didn’t listen to God.  She asked what I meant by that…and I didn’t want to lie to her.  I was given my own story of good news to share with others; the gospel according to Holly Reddy, if you will.  It’s really hard for me to share it with adults and teenagers, though, let alone a young elementary school student!  All I could think to myself was, “how in the world am I going to put this in friendly little kid terms?”  Now I look back on that moment and realize that the gospel of Christ according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John was anything but G-rated!  It was a beautiful, scarring, painful, dark, mysterious, (etc.), love story that had to get really dirty and ugly in order to give hope and the greatest joy in the end and we share that with young children every day!!!  But anyway, she wanted to know what my story was as well as how and why I’m on team so I hesitantly and carefully started in with it.  I told her about my struggles with feeling beautiful and being mean to myself in order to have the appearance of outward beauty in my own eyes and how that led me down a dark and miserable path where I really could have died.  I told her that Christ showed me love even when I didn’t love myself and that I started to see myself in His eyes as a loved child of God and started to see that I was a part of the body of Christ and that I needed to take care of myself in order to be a working part of the body of Christ (all in kiddie terms, of course).  To take the extra measure to assure her that everything was okay now and that I was all better so she wouldn’t worry about me, I, without thinking, said something along the lines of, “clearly I’m better- I’m fat now!” and she started crying.  All I could think was how I could get her to stop crying so that there wouldn’t be a crowd of concerned children wondering who the meanie-poo was who made their friend cry!!!  Then I heard her sobbing, “You’re NOT fat!!   You’re really pretty!  You’re no fat!  You’re not fat!!!!,” over and over again!  I then realized what I did in front of her-I bullied myself!  She would not stop bawling her eyes out and saying that I wasn’t fat and asking why I would be so mean to myself!  Sure enough, the masses of concerned second-graders flocked over to their friend who was quite clearly in distress.  Thankfully I was able to somehow make her laugh and stop crying just as everyone came over to see what was going on.  Before she left to go back to class, she assured me that she would see me that night at the family program and gave me a big hug before skipping to the class line.

In the afternoon after we finished visiting the classes at the school and I had a chance to think about all that happened.  I realized that the second grader was a reminder of a few things that I had lost sight of while on the road.  First, she is a child and therefore is generally honest (especially when tears are shed over something).  I had slipped into some negative body image habits again and the affirmations coming from a truly honest source was just what I needed at that time.  God was telling me that I was His beautiful creation through a child!  Secondly, she reminded me that bullying myself and telling myself I’m not good enough is something to be upset about!  I had done it out of habit to try and humble myself, but really if I’m worth dying on a cross for by God’s standards WHO AM I to say that MY standards are better?  Doesn’t that put me higher than God?  (and I am definitely never going to even be close to the goodness and likeness of God!)  So really, by being “humble” I was really being quite the hypocritical sinner who has too much pride!  Thus there was that upsetting part of my pride putting me above God.  In addition to that, my saying those things to me are just like someone else saying them to me-it’s just mean!  Just like they teach us in preschool and throughout our schooling, it’s not okay to call people names and to be mean to them.  Likewise, it is not okay to call ourselves names and to be mean to ourselves!  Lastly, she reminded me of the unconditional and persistent love that God has for me.  Just like she cried over my attitude toward myself, even a few words that I said without thinking, my heavenly Father grieves when I don’t see the beauty He created in me and when I put myself down!  Also, just like Abba, God, continually reminds me of my worth in Him, she constantly reminded me that I was loved every time I passed her in the hallway!  Every time our paths crossed she seized the opportunity to give me a big bear hug.  The bear hugs happened both before I was “mean to myself” and called myself names, so they reminded me of God’s unconditional love and how He always loves me…before I mess up, while I’m messing up, and even after I mess up!  In fact, even after I made her cry, she really wanted to see me again to give me another hug and to participate in another worship opportunity with me! (In fact, I found out later that she had to do some extra chores that she completed eagerly in order to come to the program that night)!  It really refreshed me and reminded me of why I’m here on team in the first place and how I need to not just preach the love and hope of Christ through the gospel, but also live the love and hope of Christ in my own life-toward others and toward myself!

That night we let everyone in and sure enough my second grade friend ran up to me and gave me a gigantic hug and said, “You’re not fat.”  She brought a friend that I said hello to and high-fived and then her mother came up behind her and explained that her daughter begged her to come.  She apparently cleaned her room and did all her homework right away so that she could come.  But her mother started in saying that her daughter came home and told her something happened at school today.  My heart sunk.  I thought of how she probably got home from school and told her mom that someone made her cry…and that I told her something that she may not have wanted her daughter to hear at that age (the existence of body image issues).  But instead the mother said that she told her all about chapel and getting to meet really awesome people who sang and danced with her.  She wondered why she wanted to come so badly and came to check out the program herself with her daughter.  Then I, because of my conscience, decided to let the mother know what happened with the whole crying situation that she didn’t hear about from her daughter.  I got to tell her that her daughter really changed the way I was thinking and was an amazing blessing to me!  Turns out, the mom also had a friend who struggled with the same things I did and she was okay with me sharing my story:  the abridged version, with her daughter because it might mean something to her when she grows up and starts going through that phase of her life.  I hope I can be a blessing to her one day, but what I will never forget is what a blessing and a God-send she was for me at just the right time.

So there you go-God’s provision in the form of an adorable second grader who I made cry!  Be on the lookout for those reminders of God’s love for you every day!  Blessings and peace of the Lord be with you all!