Guest Post: Air Mattresses & Team Members

As we prepare for the beginning of our summer season, we are beginning to think about our staff and all the new places they will be in just a few weeks. The following was originally posted by Jeffrey Wright, a 2013 YouthWorks summer staff, on May 26, 2013.

 

As I type this, there is a team of four landing in Puerto Rico; there is another team that is getting used to their summer site in San Diego. There are 13 teams on the road right now to various sites around the country. And I’m sitting the airport in Minneapolis waiting to board a flight to San Francisco. Welcome to YouthWorks.

 

My week started with a flight to Minneapolis and two interesting significant events: meeting my team for the first time and my air mattress deflating on me in the night. It was clear from that point on that my two responsibilities of the week would be to grow close to my team….. and to fix my air mattress.

 

It’s been an incredible week of learning for me. YouthWorks as an organization works with excellence, and I can’t tell you how much that excites me! The training was actually helpful and developmental for me as a person, and they took time to develop our site teams. Jibby, Chris, Luci, and I have begun to learn about each other, and though we have a long way to go, we’re ready to start! However, my mattress was not ready to go… Waking up at 4:00am on nothing but concrete isn’t fun. Maybe I just failed to screw on the cap properly that second night?

 

I’ve been rocked by how Jesus moves through His body this week, though we all are so different. In Minnesota accents are weird, food doesn’t include sweet tea or a heart-clogging amounts of gravy, music preferences don’t include country, denominations are varied, but Jesus is the same. It has been a joy to meet people who are so different! What wasn’t so different was the fact that the third night I again woke up with a deflated mattress.

 

I went to Philadelphia my freshman and sophomore years with my church, 12Stone. Those trips during high school messed me up. Now, I get to spend a whole summer creating that stage for Jesus to move in each week. I’m so blessed and excited to fill that role and create that space for high schoolers! As I went to sleep that night pondering this crazy blessing, I found a hole in my air mattress…. Aha! I covered that bad boy with tape and went to bed. 4:00am rolled around, and the same painful concrete floor greeted me with open slabs…

 

We finished up training, checked out, got our staff swag, and packed up. The head staff washed our feet. Maybe you missed that because it has become cliché in Christian culture, so let me say it again: THE STAFF WASHED OUR FEET. They commissioned us and sent us out. Any organization that understands the depth of importance in serving the staff will always win me over. I went to bed with damp feet and a full heart….. and a patch over the hole in my mattress.

 

Where I was training with 60 people, I now am with three others. We’re on a flight to San Francisco. As I look over the clouds, I think of a quote: “Our world is saturated with grace, and the lurking presence of God is revealed not only in spirit but in matter…. God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us.” (Brennan Manning, Ragamuffin Gospel) God is moving amongst my team, on the ground in San Francisco, and among the participants of the mission trips starting in two weeks. God is moving with my new friends in Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, San Diego, St. Paul, and many other places. I woke up this morning with a sense of God’s presence, a plane ticket, a team of people I trust, and a full heart…… and air in my mattress.

 

San Francisco, here I come.

 

 

Jeffrey Wright loves foosball, sweet tea and a good pen. When he’s not serving as a YouthWorks staff busy leading hoards of teenagers through San Francisco, he can be found swing dancing, cheering on the Georgia Bulldawgs or searching the world over for the tastiest chocolate chip cookie. Jeffrey frequently records his thoughts on life, God and service on his blog at 12colon9.wordpress.com