While I’m sure not every Wesley Bros reader is also interested in horror movies, you probably get the motifs. Which is why I’m a little surprised there’s been no youth group slasher film yet, seeing as every youth trip ever starts with the exact same premise of any of these films.
After our church bus died and was towed off in the Appalachia mountains, we learned our youth group was less than a mile from a gas station. The only gas station for miles in either direction. That very old gas station, the one that folks pass and think, “I can probably make it to the next one, no need to stop here.” As I navigated no cell phone service, calls to the camp to get rides for our group of 18, and the appropriate public behavior of said 18, I thought to myself, “This is how I die.”
Just at that moment of despair, a local in a greasy Dickies onesie chimes in with the classic, “Y’all ain’t from around here, is you?” As one of my most innocent High School girls lets this stranger know our exact destination, as if she’s NEVER READ LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, he chuckles. Guffaws, even. Stepping backwards away from our group, he motions to the vast lack of civilization all around us and chortles, “You goin to Breathitt?! Yall can kiss ALL of this goodbye!” And thus with his newly purchased Monster can and carton of Montego Reds did our harbinger of impending doom depart, suspiciously cackling til the very end.
Whenever I take of group of youth anywhere, I am acutely aware of my responsibilities for their safety. I am also acutely aware of the incessant adolescent drive to be risky and unsafe. I have become the Worst Case Scenario guy, thinking of all the ways things could go wrong and assessing what I can do to prevent maximum damage. It’s very Ecclesiastes of me, I like to think.
Well, whether your week is full of impending doom or of puppies and roses, I trust that the God of all wisdom, love and mercy is holding you firmly. Now practice your spiritual disciplines in good times and bad ones, and when that local harbinger of doom points the finger at you, may you be bold enough to proclaim with Job, “Blessed be the name of the Lord!”