YOUTHQUAKE 2008

I am so excited for Tez I could just bust!! Tez left this afternoon for church camp in Como, Colorado with my niece Kristin and her church youth group. This is his first camping trip - wish I could watch it could be funny! I went to camp in cabins at a camp site but they are actually going camping in the mountains! Tez went with us to Branson a few weeks ago and I think that was the first out of state trip that he can remember. I am so excited for him! He is going to have more fun than he can even imagine! I think Martez is a little jealous b/c he keeps saying I didn't get to go to camp like he is still a teenager. I went to camp every year from second grade through my senior year in high school plus annual church trips to Six Flags, retreats a couple of times per year and Youth Congress in Florida. I loved every minute of those trips and the memories I still have even though somehow our bus broke down on every trip to Six Flags. I can't even begin to count how many pictures I have aside the highway while we still had fun waiting for help to arrive - pre-cellphone days! Although buying the plethora of camping items was tedious I was just so excited I didn't really care! I can't wait to hear all about the trip! He seemed a little nervous and unsure when I dropped him off but still excited for his adventure ahead! Isaiah on the other hand was so upset his big brother was leaving that he screamed and cried himself to sleep on the way home! ;(

You know what really irritated me....well I am about to tell you. Tez's mother kept saying, "Well does he really want to go." YES we aren't forcing him to use the opportunity to have fun in the mountains of Colorado. The my MIL kept asking questions like, "Did you give them a phone number to call if something happens? What if he doesn't like it? Does he know anyone he is going with? Will he be the only black kid?" My answers: First of all they would not allow him to go without emergency contact info. Second of all do you really think we would send him to the mountains of Colorado to camp and not give them an emergency phone number. If he doesn't like it we are not going to go get him anyway so he can suck it up and try to act his age. He is going with his cousin Kristin and the other teens from the youth group he has been going to for months. I don't know if any other black children will be there and it should NOT even matter!!! I seriously doubt they will have a Christian lynching of the black boy. We try not to send our kids to a racist church camp. I wanted to say he experiences far more racism from you than he ever will with the WHITE people we associate with!! SERIOUSLY THAT CRAP IS SO IRRITATING, STUPID, JUVENILE, IMMATURE, IDIOTIC..............you get the point right! WHO IS THE RACIST HERE? I SWEAR IT NEVER ENDS.