Alright, alright, alright…..

OK, most of you know that I am a counselor for a summer youth program for my church. This program goes all summer and has sessions all over the world. The sizes range from 130 to almost 2000 youth. This happens to be my fourth year at EFY (short for Especially For Youth). Every year that I finish EFY I think to myself that I will not be doing it again. This mainly comes from the fact that I get next to no sleep for several weeks in a row. It really wears me down after a while. Last year I did five weeks in a row. This year I have six. Another reason I think that I am done is the fact that I really want to get married. Married couples cannot be EFY counselors. So there’s always that hope. But to my chagrin, I always end up coming back.
Why do I come back? I think that it has to do with the fact that I love the way this job makes me feel. To some people that may make sense. To others, let me try and explain.
Have you ever had a job that you truly loved? I mean, a job that you would give your left eye to keep? These are the jobs that, 30 or 40 years down the line you will be happy to tell your grandkids about because you really made a difference. EFY is one such job. I see youth come to the program all the time with bad attitudes and worse decor. But something usually happens during the week that takes these diamonds in the rough and turns them into shining gemstones. As a counselor at EFY, you know that you, at least in some small part, had some part in this smoothing process. To be able to put in a bunch of effort and actually see the results makes the job worth it (Lord knows the money doesn’t). That is why I love EFY and why I’ll be doing until August. It’s the little things that make life worth living.