This weekend I took 5 SJT youth on a leadership retreat. Good choice.
We debriefed our year together, planned and worked, cooked great food. More good choices.
Chalo is a fun youth worker and friend. (GREAT choice.)
Going down the rapids with the kids, all in life jackets. Kids had an amazing time. Maybe… not the safest thing in the world. OK choice. (I was the only one who slipped and killed my shoulder. I’m going to the doctor in a couple of hours.)
The next day after the rapids adventure #2, I decided that it would be fun to “float down the lazy river” after our last rapids run. As I hung back in the deeper waters with the two boys, the light girls raced on ahead of us. As I heard their yells of joy, I thought “how fun!”… but as we got closer to the rapids, I realized… they were screams of terror. They had serious fear in their eyes. The way-too-shallow water raced, pushing them along. The boulders sat. Pummeling the children as they bumped along. They were looking at me with this “We trusted you!” expression and I found myself yelling as we torpedoed along “THIS WAS A BAD CHOICE!”
We floated by my in-law’s cottage and they stood at the balcony, looking on in disbelief. As we pulled ourselves out at the sandy embankment at the bottom of the decidedly un-lazy river after the longest 5 minutes of my life, one sputtered as he crawled out “so this is what it feels like when you finally reach land after being shipwrecked…”
Bad choice.
To prove they all survived…
I’m off to the doctor’s and considering getting them to check out my head in addition to my broken shoulder.
