Short Summer

This has to be the shortest summer on record for me. It has gone by like a whirlwind and now the dust is settling and poof...it is almost fall. I haven't even taken the girls to a pool this summer. That is not a good Mommy.
Hopefully now that things are settling down I can take them to one next week.

My son came home last night after being gone for almost 3 months. He is 19 now and I was surprised at how easy it was to let him go. Of course I followed him alot! Before you think I am a Stalker Mom, which I am, my son was working on a statewide political campaign for the candidate for the Public Service Commissioner of Georgia. He was the Project Director by title but he did anything and everything that needed doing alongside of the candidates beautiful, talented daughter. She was married. He is 4 years younger than her so they were great working together. But it was the other 15 or so kids between the age of 13 and 21 that were the best.

When my son was 14, I dragged him and I mean literally dragged him to a program called TeenPact. You can find more info here www.TeenPact.com. In one week the kids write a bill, take it through committee and then vote on it in the house and senate and then to top the week off they elect representatives and a governor. And then they take a public speaking course. They do this alongside real Senators and Representatives at their state capital. This program is now in 38 states. It is amazing as my son found out within 5 minutes. Needless to say he got so into it he was elected Representative the first year and Governor the next. Then he staffed it the next year and several other states. Another instance of Mommy Knows Best.

The reason I am telling you about this is that the man who founded TeenPact was the one who my son worked for this summer. Because my son is so super special and finally someone other than me and his grandmother saw that, just kidding, his Dad knew too, he was picked to work for this man. And an outstanding job he did I must say. He took care of anywhere from 15-25 students at a time. Almost without fail the kids that came to work on the campaign were TeenPact alumni. My son organized their day to day basic necessities along with a few other brilliant leaders who helped alongside him (Thank you Bre, Melika, Grace, Fred, Joe and Emily) and then they did what stumps adults. With their young elastic minds they navigated the portals of the Voter Registration for the state of Georgia and mapped precincts. These kids had it down to a science. But made it like Recess. I can't even begin to describe what it was like watching these young teens in front of their computers, delving into voter polls, mapping with accuracy neighborhoods into precincts, assigning houses, filling vans with kids and going door to door campaigning for not only the public service commissioner but a gubernatorial candidate and a congressional candidate.
And then while they were doing this very adult job they would break dance in the cars, sing loudly Christian songs, pray for each other, bandage each others accidents, disciple one another and play Ultimate Frisbee.

But what killed me was at night they, the kids themselves, would put together a nightly worship service of songs and prayer and a devotion by a different teen each night. I am telling you some of these kids were better than most preachers I have listened to in my 40 odd years.  They didn't speak to each other in little kid sermons they hit the deep ones that most preachers are scared to tackle: Immodesty, tattoos, premarital sex, a Godly walk in these evil days when the whole of Satan's army are after the young. They nailed it. They absolutely nailed it.  The nights I was privileged to witness these sermons without fail I cried. Not sweet little tears that you dab away but heart tears that you have to go blow your nose! I know that God must have been glorified in these kids. He had to be so pleased.

This is what my son did this summer and every chance we got my daughters and I tried to join him. My girls fell in love with about 6 new big sisters and 3 or 4 big brothers. Those kids left their footprint on my heart too. I can already see that my son misses these kids. They were his sisters and brothers in Christ and they were able to be themselves with each other and just be kids while doing a very adult job. The candidate won the nomination for the Republican party so they know their hard work paid off.

So although it was not a typical summer, and some other things went on too, it was a pretty good one. Now that my son is home we have to get ready for his sophomore year in college, online again, and get the girls back into school mode and me back into teacher mode. Maybe we can hit the pool and beach next week to make up for some lost time!