I know it was just a small sampling of kids, but it sure was refreshing.
I just got back from a youth retreat with about 50 kids, mostly 16 and 17 year old youth. I drove the church van which holds 12 people. It was a 2 hour drive to the retreat camp. I listened to the conversations going on around me during the drive. Most of it was high school chatter about relationships, music and movies and things, but I was surprised and amazed at some other conversations. Politics! I am in northern VA near DC. I am surrounded by liberals. My county went very blue last election. Not only that, but I am Methodist, and a lot of Methodist churches tend to have a lot of liberals in them. At least around here. When conversations went to politics they were remarkably
conservative!
I could barely believe my ears to hear a 16 year old girl who said "like" every 4 or 5 words to say, "way to go Obama(with sarcasm), we are trillions in debt and you want to give money out to other countries and do nothing for Americans. Oh, except health care, which we cant afford your plan and the government will screw up anyway."
Then I heard at least 7 kids talk about going shooting. One girl was talking to another girl about shooting skeet and the other girl said she had never shot a shotgun before. The girl who had shot skeet said they can kick and I could not help but interject and say you have to hold it tight into your shoulder.
Then there just was the trip in general. We broke the group into several smaller groups yesterday and did various small mission projects. I took 11 youth, 6 girls and 5 boys, to a house for mentally handicapped men. Only 3 of the 5 men who live there were there, 2 had down syndrome and I'm not sure what was wrong with the third, but he was barely communicative.
Usually I see kids in a situation like this need an adult to set the pace. NOPE! Wrong! They took off. Into the house we went. They engaged in conversation with the men who could talk. They were attentive. They were kind. We all played games, sung songs, went for a long walk, went shopping, had a Bible lesson. All the while the kids were sure to make the handicapped men the center of everything. The men had a great time, and so did the kids. I was told by the caretaker, that the man who was not able to communicate usually goes to his room when people came over, but he was out the whole time. Not only was he out the whole time, but during the singing, he had a huge smile on his face, and one time even started dancing a little bit. The caretaker said she had never seen him so active.
It was truly a blessing to see so many kids, still in high school, with a firm grasp on what it was to be kind, caring, outreaching and compassionate, and on top of it, have a lot of conservative thoughts feelings and values.
What an awesome trip.