This is the tenth of ten blogging installments from my life-changing summer in Milwaukee. In this recap I review my ninth and final week of programming, in addition to my one-day debriefing in Minneapolis. Be sure to check out my final postscript thoughts at the end! A logical place for such thoughts.
If you’ve missed any of previous recaps, flash back to Week 0. Also, check out what a camera crew produced when they visited our site during this epic final week.
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As I sit on the carpeted floor of the Minneapolis airport, awaiting a flight to Phoenix that won’t occur for another six hours, I feel compelled to complete this blogging journey I began nearly three months ago.
We couldn’t have asked for a better group to close out our summer. Truly. They were mostly senior high students and just incredibly well-behaved and mature for their ages. It took a couple days to break them out of their shells, but they were a fantastic group of guys and gals and I quickly found myself growing more attached to them than most of our other groups this summer.
Maybe for no other reason than they were the last group of students we’d see in Milwaukee.
Let’s start out with the less tearful moments of the week. We got filmed! Out of all the 70-something YouthWorks sites around the continent, YW decided to send a camera crew to Milwaukee to film us for a promo video. It should be available to view online next month, and I’m so excited for you guys to see it. You’ll basically get the chance to see how I lived for over two months this summer. And not just “lived” in a generic YouthWorks sense, but actually lived in Milwaukee itself. And hopefully you’ll even see my darling face in there somewhere. My beloved Gingerbread Land will be a featured ministry on the video, along with a couple other amazing ones we partnered with. It’ll just be amazing. I’ll be sure to post it when it goes live.
We gave thank you cards and small gifts to all our ministry partners and it was simply a joy to see the joy on their faces after the summer we’d all experienced together. Our Gingerbread contact got quite teary-eyed as we hugged goodbye, and she made my heart melt to the max. It’s crazy how attached I grew to all these men and women of God who are serving the Milwaukee community day in and day out, all year long; I was only here for a summer. That’s mind-blowing to me. Gingerbread Land’s Sister Clara and Miss T are just unbelievable women.
I said goodbye to so many experiences and people this past week that I don’t even know where to begin. From ministry contacts to the pastor of the church where we stayed all summer to the church secretary and church intern to the city itself, it was an emotional roller-coaster day by dwindling day.
Our last Friday was especially devastating and probably my worst day all summer. We tore down our site and put everything into storage, and I basically wanted nothing to do with this dismantling process. It felt like my summer – my entire life – was being dismantled before my eyes.
Come the next day though, God just filled me with peace. A peace that certainly passes understanding. By all means I should have continued feeling devastated over leaving this incredible city. And yet I felt only peace; it was time. Time to turn the page. Time to start a new chapter.
My team and I drove to Minneapolis Sunday morning and enjoyed a fantastic day of debriefing and celebration. We were basically treated as soldiers returning home from battle by the YouthWorks “big people,” and several tears would come to my eyes throughout the day.
Saying goodbye to my team is something I’ve dreaded all summer long, because we did connect on a level that I think may have been unusually deeper than most YouthWorks staffs. There were countless moments of joy and revelry together; there were also many nights of shared tears and desperation. I’ve never felt and expressed so many rocking emotions with the same group of people my entire life.
I’ve long been on a search for community and belonging in this life, and for three months I found it. So yes, truthfully, it’s incredibly devastating to be plucked from that now. Ideally we’ll all stay in touch, but it will be a change. Still, I have hope in change; change can be good.
I would cherish your prayers over the next several weeks and months as I adjust to life back in southern California. Before we left for home, YouthWorks stressed the importance of some solid debriefing time and reflection over the wild summers we all experienced. I desire to take this seriously and spend a couple days alone somewhere as I “detox” from the most stressful / incredible summer of my life. So I look forward to going on a little solo retreat this weekend. Not sure where I’m going yet, but I know it will be amazing.
I hope you’ve enjoyed following me on my YouthWorks journey all summer long. It’s been a blast recapping it here. As for what’s next, I’ve long felt compelled to create my own website and start my own “official” blog there, so be on the lookout for that in the relative near future.
Milwaukee, I love you. I’ll return someday.
The end.
TMZ PS:And there it is. The final chapter. Reading this again brought a cacophony of emotions to my soul. It’s been nearly three months since I last set foot in Milwaukee, and I’m still very much readjusting to life beyond that incredible city. Those incredible students. My incredible team. I said goodbye to so many special people and yet was legitimately filled with unexplainable peace as this journey closed. Since returning to California, however, I’ve had to endure some intense periods of mourning, confusion, loneliness, and what can only be paralleled as a sort of drunken zombied stupor. There’s really no other way I can describe the jarring sensation for someone who hasn’t experienced it firsthand. Coming back to “reality,” it’s like I’ve had to learn how to walk again. I’m still staggering, still stumbling, still struggling both to hold on and let go of this summer in the right ways.
Thank goodness I have this new blog to help me process everything. I’m certainly not done talking about YouthWorks just yet. And I may even have a couple video surprises in store that go beyond the awesome promos.
Thank you all for following (and re-following) me on this journey.
And thank you, YouthWorks. For changing my life.
As one who has also been searching for community all his life, I know it’s hard to leave one, especially when it’s so strong and close as you experienced. That doesn’t mean that you’ll never have another community.
You mentioned in your first week of TMZ that you’re a wanderer. Perhaps part of your story that God is writing means you’ll have several communities in the future. Each one will be different, each one could only be temporary- but that doesn’t diminish their value.
I myself don’t want to leave my current community- it’s been the best so far. But I too am a wanderer of sorts. While I’m beyond sad about moving on, I’m excited about what God has next!
Can’t wait to hear more from you as move forward after this summer!