My dear sweet friend Susan Peugh got married on Friday and missing her wedding thrust me deep into uncontrollable nostalgia. Although I have not yet shed a tear, they have welled up and are stuck in my throat just waiting for the opportune moment to flow freely down my cheeks. I was on summer staff for World Changers for four years as a missionary working with youth from across the country as they became the hands and feet of Christ in low-income and impoverished areas of the United States. Very quickly World Changers became my passion – the experience my heartbeat accelerated for. The memories are countless. My first summer I gallivanted throughout Mississippi and Louisiana with Rachel, Nathan, Calvin and most of the time Drew…in Biloxi I remember refusing to go run and play with all the birds because I didn’t want to get pooped on…unfortunately the wind was blowing my direction and I was absolutely COVERED in bird poop…in Florida I got what I thought was the worst sunburn I’d ever experience…Calvin and Nathan had cone wars…and Shawn Doss made us laugh until it hurt by doing his Stewart from Mad TV impression. Summer number two was a little more scattered…Chris (aka Whitey), Lee Weaver, Susan Griffin and I started our adventure in Jackson, Tennessee where we first met Larry Williams and had more Sonic than we could have ever imagined…we lived with bugs that were as big as encouragrams…then headed to Chicago for some time with Claude Gore, Brittany McDonie, and Jacqueline Ward…it rained on the morning of the great send-off and we danced on top of the expedition to “eye of the tiger” laughing hysterically the entire time (especially when we dented in the top WHOOPS!)…the second half of our summer was spent back in Louisiana where we played paintball, went mudding, and had amazing steaks on our REDNECK Wednesday night off…PASSSSSADAS with Shawn Doss and the endless bottles of mountain dew brought the summer to an amazing close. Next were the adventures of the ATLANTIC team and our journey on the island of Puerto Rico…it was there that I fell in love with Danny and had my first “love story”…got absolutely destroyed by mosquitoes of a variety I have never seen since… ate mayo y ketchup con garlic and Wendy’s until I was sure if I smelled it one more time I would throw up…we went to the rainforest and the monkey pooped all over the side of our car…we swam in the waterfalls and laid out in the Caribbean sun…then we headed to Florida where we missed our Puerto Rico friends more than ever...BUT we worked with Danny and Lizanne Crocker as we wore our “scurvy dawgs of the Atlantic Team” t-shirts (pirates III came out that week) and managed to somehow say goodbye to our island days…we spent a week at Disneyworld and universal studios…and then finished the summer off with Joel and Dawn Dramis in Port St. Lucie where we walked on the beach and collected shells in the vibrant Florida sunset (oh and YES the orange juice is amazing!!!) My final summer on WC staff I was the team leader for the New Orleans team. Emily, Michael, Brian and I spent 5 weeks living it up in New Orleans, LA! We stayed at one school, ate at another school, and worship at a church down the street. It was the most INTENSE world changers experience outside of PR that I think I’ve ever experienced. However, it was coupled with moments of absolute hysteria…Em and I ditched the boys at wal mart and went to buy purses from Angie’s…Em peed her pants and went running into a very fancy Chinese restaurant for immediate relief, Michael ate over 5 pounds of twizzlers, Brian fell through a roof and had a serious bruise to show for it…there was the oscillating cockroach and the 5:00am firedrill along with the land of eternal sunshine and the bunk beds placed strategically over the support beams…the haunted show Em and I watched on the tv while I was in the hospital (as she starved but felt too bad for me to tell me she was hungry and leave me in the hospital alone)…the meal at every hard rock café we could find (the ranch dressing wasn’t good)…getting lost in Washington DC at night and trying to follow the cop out of the city…riding the train from the Arlington national cemetery after the torrential downpour that should have completely ruined our hair but somehow we managed to survive…the crowns we wore to opening celebration in Philadelphia, PA since we lived in a castle for the week…BONNIE and BEV…we no like the multi…the day we met bud on our airboat adventure…the many MANY trips to Café Du Monde for iced café au lait and beignets…paddle boating in Ottawa…aunt jo taking us to get our nails done in quebec…four square…worship outside the parliament building…I could go on and on for hours! There really isn’t anything quite like World Changers and although I have graduated and somewhat moved on from that part of my life, I think part of my heart is still captivated by those experiences. I’m not sure I’ll ever completely be past it – it is a part of my past – but it has shaped my present and will be a factor in determining my future – it shaped and molded me into the person I am – it is imbedded deep within the core of my being – it is me – I am and will always be a World Changer.
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