"You're Working for a Month, and Not Getting Paid?"

I have spent my past week hanging around over 200 high school junior boys, and personally getting to know around twenty of them as a counselor. Testosterone, attitudes, tension, rivalry and competition have run rampant when you combine that many young men into a confined space for the duration of the week. To many, that sounds questionable, but to the American Legion, Colorado Boy’s State is a program like no other, and I couldn’t agree more. I sacrificed a week of my summer, took a week off of work, destroyed my sleeping patterns, and consumed questionable amounts of mediocre college dorm food, all to give back to the student delegates and the program.

In less than two weeks I leave for Arizona to Lost Canyon YoungLife Camp where I will be on volunteer summer staff for a full month—again, unpaid. I have to cover my own travel expenses to drive over 700 miles, pay for my campground fees for spending the nights on the drive out, again leaving my real job, to work for well…free. That doesn’t even begin to cover the amount of supplies and items I’ve bought to use for the duration of my summer. I’ll live with a group of other college kids from around the country in tight quarters for a month. Granted, these are only people who I’ve met through a short bio and Instagram Stories.

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback and some criticism from those around me explaining that my choice to continually keep working for free with all these organizations and programs isn’t the smartest choice at this point in my life. Yes I have student loans and various bills that I have to cover; trust me, I’m well aware. I understand that maybe I could have taken summer classes, and been able to graduate earlier to begin my career in the professional workplace sooner. Yes I could have tried to get an internship, or done an exchange program like many of my friends have, that will ‘Look good on applications’. But why do I keep doing the things I’m doing, when there’s so many other things that I could be doing for the rest of the summer?

When I scroll through Facebook I always see these type of posts: “I just want to look at the stars and talk about life,” or “I don’t want to go to parties, I want to go hiking,” or “I feel more connected without my phone” or “Get lost in nature, and you’ll find yourself,” and all those cliché Tumblr type posts. Ironically enough, these posts are rarely made by the people who actually are willing to go out and do these things. Or in the case they actually do, they have to have Snapchats posted to ‘prove’ to the world that they did it. Part of truly being the type of person that people talk about being, requires that you can sacrifice part of your traditional and often stagnant life to do something unorthodox and uncomfortable. Over the next month, I hope to exonerate these aspects.

While I’m at camp I’ll only have access to my electronics and phone for a short while on the weekends when kids aren’t there, and will only communicate back home with letters, and mailed notes. This will force me to find intimate and meaningful conversation with those fellow staff members around me. Currently we live in a world where it’s so much easier to pull out your phone and pretend to be texting someone instead of speaking verbally with other individuals, so by spending my time where face to face conversation is necessary I hope to grow in my intentional communication with other people. A skill that can’t be bought.

The thing about YoungLife, is that we love laughing, doing silly and messy activities, singing ridiculous songs and finding joy in all things. Often times the kids that attend camp live a life at home where they haven’t been able to do these genuinely. While at camp, they can suspend their home lives just long enough to experience an abundant, meaningful and satisfying life. In this realizing that their identity matters, and that they are loved unconditionally, even if the world around them says otherwise. By surrounding myself with other people who seek joy in all things, I know that my attitude an outlook on the rest of my life will change for the better as I will strive to see things as they should be, not necessarily as they are, and be willing to think lightly and laugh about life. A skill that can’t be bought.

Through the camp staff experience I will be pushed and expected to challenge myself. Not in the particular way of challenging yourself to do adrenaline junkie things, (which I kind of already do—since I’m working on high ropes) but to stand for my morals and hold myself accountable to my convictions. To look at the weak and sensitive parts of my life openly, and shed light on the tough things I’ve previously kept locked up and hidden. To admit when I’m wrong, and accept that I can’t do everything on my own—even if my ego tells me otherwise. To realize that the college students who I’m living with are all at a similar point in life and are searching for something more by working with middle and high school students for a month this summer, and want to grow emotionally, inter-personally and spiritually in ways that you can’t by living solely a static life. A skill that can’t be bought.

I expect my month session to be exhausting. Early mornings setting up, and very late nights tearing down, all to make sure that these thousands of teenagers have a week that will change their life forever. There’s nothing more rewarding than that.

At the end of the day, I know I want to be part of something bigger. Something meaningful, that I can look back upon and know that I played a part and made a difference, even if I never get to see the direct impact it may have had. Knowing that even though I’m not getting paid financially, that I’m being rewarded and benefiting from my efforts in ways far greater than I would from just a paycheck; in skills that just can’t be bought.

So yeah, you can technically make the argument that I;m not getting paid--Oh well...

-Nick