Camping

Yesterday I got home from an overnight camping trip with several guys from my church. I had been planning it for a few months, and we hoped it would be a good "male bonding" time. We were not disappointed.

On Friday night, we picked up the kids from their homes. Although I had about a dozen boys signed up and had stopped by their homes the evening before to remind them and their moms about it, about four of the twelve weren't able to make it. It was a blessing in disguise, though, since our 15-seat van was rather full with camping supplies. My friend J, who teaches Sunday school to the little kids with the help of his wife, came along to help me chaperone the eight kids.

We arrived at Yellow Woods State Forest in Nashville, Indiana at about 8pm, set up our tents, started a campfire, and made hot dogs and s'mores. The guys ran threw a ball, wrestled, and had a good (and loud) time. So loud, in fact, that we got a visit from the park ranger. He was nice, but told us that we had to quiet down. Later that evening, I took some of the guys on a midnight hike around the park (click on the pictures to enlarge):

The campsite was situated next to a small lake with a boat dock. Around midnight, about half of the guys went on another hike with J, and the other guys and I sat on the dock and talked about girls, space aliens, girls, spiders, stars, and girls. It was very peaceful to sit on the dock with a clear sky above us and the little metal boats on the dock in front of us, and we seemed to have an open and relaxed conversation. By the time we finally got back to the tents at 2am, we continued chatting for a while longer.

Here is a picture of the dock in the daytime:

The next morning, we had eggs and doughnuts for breakfast, made lots of noise, and took down the campsite. We then went on a hike around the surrounding hills and climbed on an old dam next to the lake:

We then drove about 45 minutes away to Blue Springs Caverns in southern Indiana, which has a boat tour through a narrow underground river. Some of the guys were sufficiently scared to make it worthwhile, but they all definitely had fun. The boats held about 15 passengers, and there were a few other customers in addition to our group. I feel sorry for them because our guys were talking and yelling and laughing the whole time, but the other folks seemed to take it in good humor. Here is a picture of all of us and the tour guide in the cave (except me, of course; in all these pictures, I'm the guy behind the camera):

On the way home, we stopped at Taco Bell for dinner. It was a very fun but very tiring trip. I do think our friendships deepened, and I'm looking forward to hanging out with the guys more. J and I want to do activities like this every so often. It is important, we believe, to promote “guy time” in this subculture which has so few good male role models. Although this camping trip was fairly involved, both in planning and execution, we could do smaller-scale activities, like guy's night at my house (we've done this before) or a day trip to the White River to go canoeing.

Death in the Family

Over the past several months, I have had a wonderful time living near Brookside and being involved in the church and hanging out with the folks who live here. I haven't written on this blog because most of the activity seems rather routine. Last winter, I often had kids over to my house to watch movies, but in the summer, we typically go swimming after church. Indianapolis has a network of parks, many of which have public pools with $1 admission for kids. Swimming is extraordinarily popular with the kids, and we had our big summer party at the Brookside Park pool last week. I've often taken smaller groups to various other pools on other occasions.

I've managed to go to Six Flags in Kentucky twice this summer, first with Bob's teen program and then with a family in our church. The latter trip was a few weeks ago, and a mom had saved all summer to go but didn't have transportation. I took the youth program's 15-seat van, and we filled it up with the mom's kids and several neighbors. On the drive down, we had a loud and exciting blowout! The mom and I were the only adults, and we had 12 kids; she took the 6 girls, and I took the 6 boys on the scariest rides. Hey, that trip could have made a good blog post—even better if I'd taken pictures.

Sunday school is going well. I get a tiny bit better every week, although it's always a challenge to know how much sinks in. I wish I knew how to engage the teens better. Maybe provide something more tactile? I'm no good at crafts, and some of the guys might think they're chintzy anyhow. I typically focus on the concrete stories in the Bible (e.g., David and Goliath, David and Bathsheba, Solomon, etc.) rather than the abstract ideas (e.g., Jesus' Sermon on the Mount).

But other than that, not much noteworthy has happened. Until, that is, last Monday, when we received word that one of our own had been fatally gunned down on the corner of Gale and 25th.

Ryan's mom has been a faithful member of our church, and his youngest brother has come to Sunday school (not my class) for the past few years. Ryan and his brothers had been involved in Bob's program as they were growing up, but in the past few years, they had gotten mixed up in the wrong crowd. From what we can gather, Ryan and a friend had stolen some stuff (most likely including drugs) from some guys in the 'hood, and Ryan's murder was retribution. They shot Ryan's friend in both his arms, leaving him for dead, but he survived.

Ryan and I actually met over year ago. In fact, he was the biggest of the three guys who had tried to steal my car August 6 of last year. He's the one I wrote about in this post. I never told his mom about it because I didn't want her to feel bad, and I hope she never found out and never does. I never told the police because I wanted to be friends with Ryan, not "catch" him. Oddly, we were always cordial since the little mugging incident.

"'Sup, L," he would say.

"What's going on," I would reply.

We chatted on the phone occasionally, and I saw him at his house several times when I was running other errands. But I never got to know him very well.

I went to the funeral yesterday, which was extremely well attended and very, very sad. Obviously, his mom is devastated. I don't know what else to say about that.

This morning at church, Ryan's mom came to church. She is trying hard to keep her head up high. She trusts God even when nothing seems to make sense, and I admire her for that. Her sister, who has been her "rock," talked to some of the other teachers and me, expressing hope that Ryan's brothers would respond to this situation by changing their direction in life. I told her that I was always available, and that they shouldn't hesitate to call. But I've been saying that for months. Today, I emphatically stated that this is a 2-way street: I can reach out, but they have to reach back. Hopefully she can pass that message along to them.

In any case, I'm glad I've been here a year so that folks know who I am and feel comfortable talking to me. I have tried to review the past year and determine if I could have done anything else to perhaps change the course of Ryan's life. Sadly, I haven't come up with any ideas.

The Indianapolis Star ran a good article this morning. I saved a .pdf of the article; if you're interested, leave a comment with your email address, and I'll send it to you.

Please pray for Ryan's family.