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Very soon I will be loading myself and  the three older Chinos up in a church parking lot teeming with high school students saying gruff goodbyes to parents, while we kiss our baby goodbye.  We will drive all night long and wake up in the mountains.  When I think about this soon-to-be-experienced moment of arriving, I can be a little more calm about the monumental task of getting ready to go.  Of course, my job of finding gloves and hats is nothing compared to the organizing and finalizing and fund-raising and calling, calling, calling that our fearless trip leaders have had to do this week, and will be doing right up until the very last minute.  Most folks never see the amount of planning and praying and begging that goes into one of these grand adventures.

This year I am particularly excited about how many students we are taking on their very first trip to Colorado.  Lots of first time snowboarders and skiers.  For some, it will be their first time to see mountains.  And for a few, their first time to leave Arkansas.  There is a strange sort of welling up to tears inside me when I think about a fifteen year old laying his eyes on the Rockies for the first time in his life.  I wonder if it will get into his system the way it has entered the hearts of so many I love.  Will he always remember how he encountered God in the heights of the snow-covered peaks?  Will he return year after year to seek the same peace in his soul?  To calm the storm that rages after a year of difficult times at home or the constant pressure of school?

The mountains make me younger.  I don’t remember everything from school, but my heart holds my yearly treks to Colorado more tightly than maybe anything else from those days.  Technicolor intact movie memories. As soon as I pop my boots into those skis, I am smiling and sixteen again.  (In fact, when I was skiing might have been the only time I was smiling when I was sixteen.)  Not until I feel my quads burning after a few runs, do I remember how many years I have on these legs.

A fun addition this year is that a family camp is running alongside the high school trip.  Separately, but in the same camp.  Our paths will cross on the slopes and in the dining hall.

Oh sweet friends!  This week we will stand up and slide down, fall and begin again.  We will laugh hard and maybe cry harder.  We will sing and eat and live and love.  Maybe even fight.  We will have to work things out.  And when we come home we will see it in each other’s eyes that we have done this thing together.  Shared experience.  Remember when is the stuff of true community.  I wouldn’t miss it for the world.