The 3 o'clock hour

The 3 o'clock hour rolls by twice a day. The horrible morning and the beautiful afternoon. My preference is to be unconscious, fully unconscious, for the first 3 o'clock hour every day. It is pure torture to me to be awake at this time. I'm only 28, but its far enough past my college days that I can't keep these hours regularly. Yet my preference could not be honored in these last 4 days. And the reason- I am a youth worker!

It is amazing the relationships you can build with teens when you put yourself out in the most undesirable ways to spend time with them. When you aren't in the normal 6:30-8:30 Wednesday night or 11:00am Sunday setting, teens open up and walls come down and real relationships can be built.

By being a youth worker, in the last 4 days, it  has meant staying up all-night (ok - I didn't make it past 3:30am) with 9 girls at an over-nighter at my house. There was games & laughter.  Watching movies & watching college boys.  Eating pizza and chips.  And having serious heart-to-heart conversations while sitting on the kitchen counters.

It also meant waking myself up at 3:45am today to drive to a graduating senior's home by 4:30am to kidnap her for a celebratory breakfast before school. Myself, along with 7 other adults, kidnapped our 5 graduating seniors to take them for breakfast. And it was an absolute blast! The looks on their faces went from horror, to confusion, to happiness that they were being honored in such a way. Sitting at Denny's, all of us in varying levels consciousness was humorous to say the least.

In the last 3 years, while working with these teens, I've grown to love each of them. They bring such diverse opinions to the table. They need love as much as I do. They want to feel valued and listened to. They are so worth the time I get to invest with them.

Being a youth worker  has also given me such a heightened awareness of the time my own youth workers gave and the discomfort they received, to spend time with me when I was younger. I've now traveled overseas with teens. I've been on 8 hour bus rides for amusement parks. I've driven those huge 15 passenger vans. I taken hard phone calls when someone just needed to talk. I've dealt with parents. I've been at events I may not have wanted to be at. This stuff is fun. BUT IT IS HARD TOO! I remember what I did in my youth group and how many people where involved to make it happen.

So ... to Scott, Michele, Steve, Wendy, Denise, Bill, Dan, Debbie, Joe, Grant, Debra, and others I'm sure I'm missing ... because of the time you've spent on me, I want to say thanks. I hope I can turn around and give even a slim bit of what I've been given by you all. The impact you've made is irreplaceable.