Light of the World

One of the things that I love to do with AFC every year is go on the weeklong trips over the last week of Christmas Break. We send out eight groups of AFCers to children’s homes across the state of Texas and Oklahoma. In the past I have been to Cherokee Children’s Home in Cherokee, Texas as well as Tipton Children’s Home in Tipton, Oklahoma. Both of these trips were awesome, and a wonderful experience for me. The best part is that they get better every year. This year, I made the long trek up to Amarillo, Texas to spend the week with my fellow Ags at the High Plains Children’s Home. I don’t think that I have ever had a more amazing experience in my life. EPIC would be an appropriate description of this trip. Our group had such great balance and cohesion. I was excited to go in the beginning because some of my good friends were going to be there, but at the same time, I was anxious because a few of AFC’s pretty, popular girls were going. You all know how I tend to feel about that. My concerns, however, were completely unfounded. Every single person that went on the trip was absolutely amazing, and we all worked together so well!

Our trip up to Amarillo was, of course a long one, but we had tons of fun along the way. About half of the group left together from College Station; the rest were already in Amarillo, or were coming in directly from their hometowns. We only made it about 45 minutes out of College Station before we had to stop in Riesel. It didn’t take long, but it was amusing that some of our friends felt the need to get some Bush’s Chicken to eat in the car. Thomas, Natalie, Macy, and Jacob got a family pack, plates, and plastic ware and had a regular picnic in the suburban. They also made friendship bracelets in the car; it was really cute. Between Decatur and Amarillo, we had a fairly epic Alphabet Game battle. I won when I saw County Road Z! Thomas was rather jealous. We didn’t really have anything else exciting happen until we got to Hedley, Texas. We had to stop there because we experiencing some intense vibrations from the back of the suburban. When we got out of the car, it looked like our back tire had a softball-sized tumor on it! It was crazy! Fortunately, we had plenty of boys to change the tire, so we were back on the road pretty quickly.

Once we got to Amarillo (Canyon, actually), we stopped at the home of our trip leader, Chace. Her parents kindly provided us with pizza and drinks for dinner and gave us all a chance to socialize now that the vast majority of the gang was in the same place. We then broke into groups to go to our respective “homes” for the weekend. Natalie, Samantha, Lyndsey and I stayed with some members of the Central Church of Christ in Amarillo. They had a really interesting home, and they treated us like family. It was really fun to share a room with someone (Natalie) for the weekend—like an old-fashioned sleepover. It’s such a great way to get close to your friends, both literally and figuratively.

Originally, we were supposed to have a weekend trip at the Central Church of Christ before going to High Plains and do a service project for them. Unfortunately, they needed us to do some outdoor painting, and the weather just did not permit it. Instead, our group of AFCers just spent the day together, getting to know one another. We had some BBQ for lunch and then we headed out to Cadillac Ranch to have some fun with spray paint and cameras. That night, we went to the home of another local Aggie, Jena. Her family fixed up an awesome steak dinner for us, and they let us watch football at their house. Sunday morning, we went to the Central Church of Christ for Bible class and Sunday service. Some of our Ags led the youth group class. They shared some of their personal stories about their faith and their walk with Christ now and when they were younger. They did a really good job and some of their stories were really moving, especially Amanda’s. After church we went back to Jena’s house, where her family had made us another awesome meal. They were wonderful and treated us all like we were one of their kids.

After Sunday lunch it was off to High Plains to get settled in for the week. The home had a vacant cottage that they let us (there were about 22 of us) have to ourselves. It ended up being a bit like a very large, coed sleepover, except that there were more than enough beds to go around (and no funny business, if you know what I mean). I shared a room with my name twin, Katelyn. Even better, we both happened to be sick at the time, so we didn’t disturb anyone that way. At the beginning, we did contemplate pulling several of the girls’ mattresses into one room and having a giant slumber party, but we never got around to it.

Every day started at 8 AM (that would be 8:30 in AFC time) with a morning devotional and plans for the day, followed by service projects until lunch around noon or one. We did some great service projects at the home. We painted the inside of a building and a fence, moved some furniture and oilfield pipes for fences, cleaned out horse stalls, shoveled gravel for a playground and sand for the barn, and did a few other odd jobs. During this time, we were obviously together a lot. We would sing, make jokes, talk, and generally get to know each other. I wish I could tell you about every person, but I think that a little something about each of them will have to suffice. Samantha wants to be a middle school teacher; and, apparently, she and I are ninjas (we can get into and out of crowded rooms without anyone taking notice of us). Mandy loves hair bows. Chace is very difficult to wake up. Jacob is a really hard worker. Tony is new to Christianity. Ben and Matt love to ride bikes and go running. Amanda is a great leader and a prone to doing and saying funny things. Jenny’s New Year’s Resolution is to take one picture for each day of the year. Katelyn is studying abroad in Brazil this semester. JD is learning to fly. Paul, our other trip leader, is pretty quiet, so his funny comments catch you off guard. Juston is leading the mission trip to the Ukraine this summer. Melissa is working really hard in pharmacy school. Reece got set on fire at work (yeah, that’s a story unto itself). Macy has no idea what she wants to do with her life. The list goes on, but you get the idea. It didn’t take long to develop great respect for everyone in the group—no exceptions. It was so easy for us to spend the whole day together; even naptime was a group event. After lunch every day most of us would take a nap to prepare ourselves for seeing all of the kids when they came home from school. Despite our abundance of beds, at least half of the group would always end up sleeping in the living room. Needless to say, we like each other a lot.

The time in our separate cottages was also well spent. My group (Amanda, Jenny, Jena, Macy, Samantha, and me) went to the Williams Cottage every night. There were five girls living there; the youngest is in Kindergarten and the oldest is in the seventh grade. They were all really sweet and loving; and the youngest one, Mickayla, loved having us to herself for a while every afternoon. She wanted us to draw and color with her, and she knows how to command a crowd! We would help the girls with homework, talk with them, play games and eat dinner before group activities every night. We also had the privilege of not only getting to know the regular house parents but also the relief parents as well. They were all really wonderful people and you could tell that they really loved and cared about the girls.

After we got settled in on Sunday, we split up into groups to either hang out with some of the kids or go to evening service with others. I stayed and we had a small devo with the boys in the Axe cottage and some of my friends. We also played some games with them and laughed when one of the boys “helped” Paul play memory. When the rest of the group returned for service, all of us Ags had dinner with the Axe cottage. On Monday night, we split into our respective groups and had dinner with our assigned cottages for the first time, and I bruised my knee playing air guitar for the girls. At the gym later, we all had lots of fun playing games, especially color tag. Tuesday night was skit night—the best night of any AFC trip! It is always so much fun, especially when you have really excited actors like Jacob, Amanda, Thomas and Paul. All of our skits were awesome, but Beaver College and Movie Skit were phenomenal! Wednesday, our cottage was supposed to go to church, but one of our girls got sick on the way. We went back to the cottage and had our own devo instead. Amanda’s lesson was really good, especially since it was totally off the cuff, and we had everyone share their favorite Bible verse. Thursday night, after the kids went to bed, we Ags had our own bonfire devo. There was singing, laughing, crying and, of course, smores. Chace and Paul asked everyone to share something meaningful about another person on the trip. They also gave everyone a lighter to remind us of our theme for the week—let your light shine. We then proceeded to play with fire (What did you expect? We are only in college after all…).

On Friday morning, it was time to say our goodbyes. We all got up extra early to see the kids off the school and do some picking up in the cottage before we left. Naturally, we discovered that neither of the vacuum cleaners in our cottage worked, so the carpet did not get very clean. Finally, we loaded up and headed to Chace’s house. On the way, Chace, Natalie and I had a very interesting conversation about church and friends. I also learned—both at this time and once previously on the trip—that Chace has always thought that I was an intriguing person and that she expected me to be much quieter than I am. Once there, we collected all of our vehicles and read a very sweet letter from Chace’s parents. After nine or ten more hours of getting close in the car, we finally made it back to College Station. What a trip!

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven.” – Matthew 5: 14-16

“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” – 1 Peter 3: 15-16