The Shortest Distance Between Two Points is Sioux Falls

So I attended and spoke for the Youth Unlimited Summit Conference at Camp Geneva in Michigan this past weekend. It's a conference set up for all the different groups around the world that will be hosting SERVE projects for the coming year. I'm the speaker for the Sioux Falls SERVE site, and last year I had the crew pick me up in Newton, IA on their way out to Holland, MI.

This year, though, I drove the extra five hours of the trip up to Sioux Falls in order to be able to spend an extra day when we got back for a going away party for good friend Dustin Vander Haar as he's headed for the Netherlands tomorrow for four months.

It was a fantastic trip. Too tough to go into detail on everything, so I'm just going to give some highlights of the trip. As I've said before, and I'll say again, the Sioux Falls crew is by far the greatest group of people I've ever had the chance to minstry with. It's non stop fun and laughs the whole time.

"In the bathroom." That was answer you would recieve 99% of the time if you asked the question, "Hey, where's Dustin?" Dustin had a severe cold / stomach flu, so he spent most of time expelling things from his body in the cabin bathroom. It got so bad that Danny Fergen and I ran into town to get him some extra soft toilet paper, extra strength Immodium, and moist towelettes. You can probably imagine how manly we felt walking through the checkout line with those items together. The highlight came on Sunday though, when after finally feeling better, Dustin walked into the bathroom while I was in there, and loudly asked, "Whew! Did you do that?" Well, unbeknownst to Dustin, there was a guy in the stall next to me who quietly answered back, "That was me . . ." We all thought Dustin had a lot of nerve to take offense to someone else after the weekend he'd just gone through.

Roommates So the Youth Unlimited people always mix our crew in with strangers in the cabins. This is not always a good idea due to the fact that we tend to sleep very little, and make a lot of noise at night. Last year, at about 2:30 AM Dan Tenapel and Mark Elgersma came back to the cabin after defeating some Canadians at ping pong and did a victory dance or two in their underwear. This year, Mark laid under / next to my bed in the pitch dark, in his underwear for an unbelievably long time just to try and scare me when I came back from the chapel on Saturday night. After waiting five or ten minutes after I'd laid down, he reached up and smacked me. Unfortunately, rather than being scared, I thought Dustin had fallen out of the bunk above me since he was so sick. Add on top of that the fact that several of us snore, talk in our sleep, or toss and turn, Mark has an interesting nude shower dance, and Dustin stunk up the bathroom for the whole weekend, and you can get a pretty good clue as to who you shouldn't room with if you come to Summit.

"If you're too tired to drive . . . " Another phrase often heard this weekend. You see, when you get all of us together in one van, the driver often feels left out since they have to concentrate on something other than the uproarious laughter coming from the back. In an effort to be included, the various drivers often turn part way around to catch some of the conversations. This often leads to some good back and forth swerving on the road, at which point someone will invariably look up and offer, "If you're too tired to drive, I can take over!"

Dustin has a stinking hammock in his room! I got to spend a good chunk of Monday at Dustin's house before his going away party. And to put it simply, his house rocks my face off. For starters, he's accomplished a childhood dream of mine that my father assured me was impossible - he has a hammock hanging over his bed in his room. I laid in it. We also watched a classic Halloween episode of Macgyver where Mac had to team up with his arch enemy Murdoch on Dustin's fam's 60 inch tv. That was after we played pool on his pool table next to the wet bar / basement kitchen, but before we ate homemade banana bread from his mom . . .

Riding buddies. Mark and I made the last two and a half hours of the trip alone since we picked up his car along the way in Albert Lea. It was late, we were cranky and tired, and we'd been in the van for almost ten hours already. So after about an hour in the car together, Mark decided to count the little white posts that mark every tenth of a mile! And I decided to retaliate by making a really neat little annoying noise with my lips. We quickly made the decision it was time to switch up driving partners for a bit, and since we were way ahead of the van, we pulled over. I got out of the car, grabbed my phone, called the van, and said, "Pull over! We're switching now!" We then found out that the van had caught up to us, passed the exit and were a mile down the road when we called them. Mark and I looked at each other, and decided we were stuck, so we got back in and made it the rest of the way home without killing each other. And you know what? I'm pretty sure it made our friendship stronger. What would have happened if we'd split at the exit? Would we have talked again? Would we have broken up for good? Who would have taken custody of the kids?

Poker game. Me, Dustin, Mark, Jason Baartman, Danny Fergen, Luke Vander Leest, David Fergen, and Troy Kooima all around one table to play cards, laugh and give Dustin a sending off. Then a SERVE conversation with Dustin, Mark and Troy that started at 1 AM and lasted till 3. My sides literally hurt from laughing so hard at the end.

And then there are the things that if I went into them now, not only would this post end up twenty pages long, but I may get in trouble with the law:

Grandma Dawn
Tooth nerves
Underwear running
Mouse hunts
"Two weeks at camp till the bleeding stopped"

And oh yeah, I spoke on Sunday morning too. All in all, I'm charged and ready for a great year with these guys. I speak with David, Danny, Mark and Baartman in February, Troy and Dawn in March, Danny and Mark in April, and the whole crew in June and July. I'm excited. Every trip up there I'm reminded in a big way why I got I'm in ministry. God is huge, friends are fantastic, and big things happen with them.

Till next time,
Jason