Here's how it happened: My co-worker Alicia has two daughters that attend an American missionary school here in taipei. This semester they are starting Girl Scouts at the school but her older daughter Caitlyn's group didn't have any one willing to be the leader. So Alicia was praying about it and I kept coming to her mind. She asked me last week and then gave me some time to think about it. My initial thoughts were that it could be fun, after all there was a time in my life that I thought working with kids was my calling. And even though I was never a Girl Scout (I was a blue bird for about a minute) the idea of "helping girls grow strong" appeals to my secret inner feminist. So, today I went to the meeting with Alicia to check things out and by the end of the time I had agreed to be the leader AND go on the camping trip at the end of April. I can hear all those of you who know me laughing at the thought of me camping. I can't honestly say that I'm looking forward to it but if I'm going to do it I might as well go all the way right? Plus, I was remembering that back in the day when I was just starting my youth ministry at Prairie Hill I was having a hard time really breaking down the barriers with the kids. So we had an end of summer trip to Worlds of Fun and to prove to them how cool I was I agreed to ride the Mamba with them. Now, I hate roller coasters even more than I dislike sleeping on the hard ground in a smelly tent. In fact anything that makes me feel like I'm falling is evil in my book. And I'm sure that the way I screamed proved just how cool I'm NOT. But I made myself do it and I've never once regretted it because after that trip those kids were finally MY youth group. So drawing from that past experience I just went all in.
As I was looking through the handbook at all the things the girls will be learning I remembered why I'm a missionary in a very non-third world country. Because I have very few useful life skills. I know how to read a map well enough to navigate on a road trip, or on the MRT but other than that my skills tend to be non-essential things like, how to download music from itunes, how to use hot rollers or how to keep your eyeliner from smudging. I also have an extensive knowledge of useless facts like what year the original Star Wars movies came out ('77, '80 and '83), and how many seasons of X-files there were (9, unless you're an X-files purist and then there were really only 7). None of these things will probably ever help me in real life. In fact, if I ever had to go back to the U.S. and get a "real" job I would be in big trouble. So I'm not sure who's going to teach the girls all these things. But one thing's for sure, before we go camping we are going to go over basic survival skills and first aid. Then if I fall off the mountain my well trained troop members can save me.
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