Camp Quito

Cair Paravel, JetBlues, and Give me a J-E-S-U-S

I have many stories and many takeaways from my time in Quito with Trinity Youth, but here are just a few:

1. Kids and teenagers will always surprise you if you let them. They will surprise you with their capacity to grasp deep subjects; their likes and dislikes; their quick humor; their appreciation for beauty in all forms; their eagerness to love, to find meaning, to dig beneath the surface. Yes, there are a lot of stereotypes that are true, but they are so much more that that. Again and again, I find myself in awe of them.

2. From the start of our trip, it was evident that God was with us. We were in the Ft. Lauderdale airport for a 6-hour layover, and whilst waiting for our dinner order, some of the boys plus our pastor Dave started doing push-ups (as boys do). In Dave’s words: “Apparently we were putting off enough positive vibes that a young husband came over and asked to join. After another set we asked if we could pray for him and he paused, “I don’t know how to answer that. I mean, I studied world religions — and like, I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus is great. But man, I don’t even ask my family to pray for me. But actually, ya, please let’s pray, right? We’re all God’s people.” Long story short, push ups led to an impromptu prayer circle with his wife singing a hymn over us. We felt a mutual blessing pass between us and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Such a gift to have a “kairos” moment like that while embarking on a journey.”

3. To be loved by them is a special thing. I think of the Needtobreathe song that goes, “Who am I, who am I, to be loved by you?” Their love is sweet and reserved, but also free and forgiving. One day I journaled, “Wow! I love these kids! I love them, I love them, I love them!”

4. Look for ways to serve with your dearest friends. I think I always knew this, but this last year has been spent leading along the people who are in my corner all walks of life — and it’s the sweetest thing. So to go to Ecuador with them this past week? We couldn’t stop looking at each other and saying, “I can’t believe we’re here! I’m so glad we’re here together!”

5. Quito was a thin place, full of mountain top moments, but one of my kids made the comment, “Why can’t Atlanta be a thin place too?”

6. At the beginning of the trip, Pitty — one of the founders of the school we were serving at and our host — spoke these words over Trinity’s leaders: “God has brought you to lead this week because he has a plan and purpose for you — ask that He would reveal it to you.” Wow! Often I assume his purposes will just reveal themselves, but to ask for the revelation of them? It’s a shift of mentality.

7. In that same leader meeting, Pancho (Pitty’s husband and the school’s principal) emphatically stated, thumping his chest, “Pancho is not great — Christ is great in me!” Later that day, I journaled — “I am not a “great” leader — Christ is great in me!”

8. It’s no secret that I love photography. Specifically, I love taking pictures of the people I love. I got to spend the entire week documenting my kids, even handing off my camera to them at times. That’s actually one of my favorite things to do, because that’s how I got into photography — someone handed 12-year-old me a DSLR, and said, “Go for it.”

9. One of the sweetest gifts was seeing new friendships start between students. They see each other on a weekly basis, but something shifts when given extended time with one another and the space to wade into new conversational waters. As their leader, my heart was continually going, “Awwwwww do you see how so-and-so is hanging out with so-and-so now?”

10. A special moment was dinner Tuesday night. We went out for our “fancy” group dinner, at a restaurant perched on top of the hill called El Panecillo. I was sitting at a table with a few girl leaders and my upperclassmen at my end, with a couple other kids at the far end of the table. For context, Haley (youth pastor + dear friend) hosts dinners called “Common Table,” where people from all walks of life, all faiths, sit around a table and ask big, deep questions. One of our kids knew about it and asked if we could do one of the questions. She handed him her phone with her list of questions, and the question everyone landed on was, “How do you know you love someone enough to marry them?” As a disclaimer, only one person at this table was married — she went first. Then each of the single leaders went around and shared their thoughts. Our kids asked thoughtful follow-up questions that I treasure so much. Then it was their turn — but the conversation shifted to more about dating. We got to ask them questions about their dating experiences, how they see the different stages of dating, and how they want to approach it. As the conversation went on, the kids on the far end of the table started to lean in. While this was going on, other tables were getting up and taking pictures, loud and boisterous. But our table remained seated, trying to pick up what each person was saying over the noise. It was such a special conversation that felt like a flag-planting moment, one that shifted other conversations in the trip. We had done a dating talk with the kids in the spring, but we didn’t have these kinds of convos — and we couldn’t have. It was holy and God-ordained.

11. The Monday night devo led by Pitty was another one of those moments. At the end of her talk, she took these gold, sparkly crowns, and told us that we each were going to get crowned princes and princesses. But first, the leaders would get crowned by her and Pancho. As I walked up to her, lining up alongside my fellow leaders, I felt like one of the Pevensies in Narnia, standing at Cair Paravel and waiting to be crowned by Aslan. I felt myself standing taller — I am royalty. I am Princess McKenzie. Pitty crowned me first, placing that flimsy crown on my head, hugging me and whispering in my ear — I crown you Princess McKenzie. You are called to great things. Do not be discouraged. Fear not. I have never felt more empowered but also more tremulous. And then — Pitty had us leaders crown our kids. I’ve prayed over my kids before, but nothing like this. It was a supernatural moment, walking up to my kids as tears streamed down their cheeks and crowning them. I held their faces and tears in my hands, then wrapped my arms around them, cupping their heads with one hand and whispering in their ears, I crown you Princess Ava, Princess Jill, Princess Vivy, Princess Addy. You are a daughter of the King Most High. You are called to great things. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. He is for you, not against you. He is closer to you than I am right now. Any questions you have, He welcomes them. He longs to sit with you and hear them all. Just picture it — 26 high school students and their 7 leaders all weeping, with childish crowns askew on our heads. It was one of those things that would never work back in Atlanta, but worked here.

12. The kids we served were so free with their affection. Hugs one day in, telling us they loved us. Their little voices crying our names. McKenzie! McKenzie! Teacher! It made me think about how oftentimes, we are so reserved with our love, when we really should spend more of our time showing it.

13. Our last day was spent in the rural village of Nono, where Pancho and Pitty have a family house. It was an incredibly sweet time to relax, spend unhurried time, play games, and go on the famous “hike” (which really was a steep climb through cow/horse pastures, climbing under and over barbed wire fences). The hike was well worth it, and at one point, Dave had us all sit down, and spend a minute in silence. “Looking at this valley, I hope you just feel a hug from the Lord,” he said. It was an inhale and exhale kind of moment.

14. Our flight home! Whew. Our original JetBlue flight was supposed to leave Quito at 11:50 pm Friday, arriving in Ft. Lauderdale at 5 am Saturday. Then we were going to fly on Southwest at 9:40am back to Atlanta. BUT right before we arrived at the airport at 9pm Friday, we got an alert that our flight had been delayed 2 hours. Bummer, but we’d still have enough time to go through border control, customs, baggage claim, and recheck our luggage with Southwest. Then we got the news that it was delayed 4 hours, making it impossible to catch our connecting flight. Cue scrambling. It took us an hour to get through check in, finally arriving at our gate at 2am. Kids were sprawled all over the floors of that airport, getting what sleep they could — I even took at 30 minute power nap. At 3:45am, literally as our departing flight was boarding, all of us leaders with Delta Amex cards were booking two Delta flights for 3:23pm and 4:40pm ($258/$310 a piece). Dave and my friend Ansley were the last people to board, standing at the door, waiting for their purchases to go through. BUT when we got to Ft. Lauderdale Dave went to the Southwest desk to see if we could work out something with them. Miraculously, there were the exact number of seats we needed available on a Southwest flight for 2:45pm and we just had to make the change/rebook before our original flight landed and we would have to pay nothing extra. Mind you this was like 11:10 and our original flight landed at 11:40. Miraculously, we got it all done in time thanks to an angel named Ashley. Miraculously, we were all able to get refunds for our Delta flights. Saving us soooo much money and getting us home earlier. And one last miracle — a student was on standby because her flight was booked separately and the seat got taken before we got to rebooking hers. We rebooked her for a 7pm Southwest flight so she could go to the gate with us, and we got word a few mins before boarding that she’d be on our flight!

15. I often jam out with my youth gals in the car to the songs of my youth (One Direction, T-Swift, Justin Bieber, etc.). Windows rolled down, volume on high, scream-singing as I drive. It’s a joy-filled thing, but the kind of habit that I just assume makes me the cool youth leader. The last night of the trip, we were sitting in our teams and speaking words of affirmation over one another. One of the girls said to me, “I was really nervous about this trip — first time out of the country without my parents and being one of the youngest ones on it — but when we were in your car at orientation, blasting Taylor Swift, all my fears went away. It made me feel like I belonged.” Lest I let that comment go to my head, when I brought up to her how much her words meant to me while at the Quito airport at 4am, she responded dramatically, “I’m sooooooo tiredddddd.”

16. What does being their leader teach me? To ask curious questions — not leading ones. To check in on how people are doing. To look for the underlying tension, the unspoken words. To be unafraid of the awkward. To become more undignified than this. To learn from my fellow leaders.

17. Going into this week, I was just excited to spend a whole week of uninterrupted time with kids that I usually just see once or twice a week for a few hours. I have my couple of kids that I’m close with, but I was anticipating getting to know some of the other kids better. And I 100% did, but I also got to grow closer to the kids that I was already close with — an unanticipated gift that I am so grateful for.

18. Going into the trip, I thought a lot about how this trip was for my kids, how they would be impacted by it. I didn’t necessarily think that I would walk away having words of blessing spoken over me. During Monday night devo, Pitty and Pancho spoke words of blessing over us leaders. At Wednesday night devo, Dave put his hands on my shoulders and asked the Lord to give me the desires of my heart, prompting tears to roll down my cheeks. I found myself choked up when Haley gave a shout out to the leaders for giving up 6 PTO days to spend the week with them in Quito. And the last night, Pitty and Pancho had the kids circle up around us leaders, lay hands, and pray over us. How special.