Delaney Cotten
Professor White
Dual English
September 18th, 2012

Lost Canyon

Those char colored, ripped and raged bus seats would’ve been the only profound memory I’d possess if it weren’t for this one itty-bitty person I’d spent time with at Lost Canyon YoungLife camp in Arizona.

YoungLife was just something that I did and who I was. All of my older brothers and sisters were involved in it and so were my friends, which had an automatic result of me being plugged in too. YoungLife didn’t mean an ounce it was just a routine. Each year a group of YoungLife members would attend a YoungLife camp during the summer to enrich our lives through Christ and learn more about His word at these camps. None of that meant anything to me. I heard the same scriptures, the same songs, and the same stories about how the Lord has changed our lives forever. I believed all of it but my life was not changed, I was living in a routine. Something was missing and what I needed was to experience this love and that is where Lost Canyons took place. It was the summer before junior year and it was that time again to sign up for Younglife camp. My choices were Wilderness or Lost Canyons. Playing “enie meanie minie mo” between the two I landed with Lost Canyons which was a camp for teen mothers and we’d be taking care of their kids while they got the wonderful opportunity of experiencing camp as a normal teenager without their kids for a week. mid summer, the day we left for camp arrived. I was apathetic with a mix of skepticism. I didn’t think I, or anyone in their right mind would pay money and take their free time to take care of someone else’s kid. Despite my thoughts I went anyway because Younglife was apart of me and who I was regardless of my lack of interest. On our way to camp, I checked my facebook and twitter one last time and sent one last “Goodbye” text to me best friend Lani before I surrendered my phone for the week. Aw we arrived to camp, all I saw was faces of babies screaming and whining on the shoulder of their weary, exhausted mothers. Instantly, human nature took a toll on my thoughts and I began to criticize the mothers and what I thought was a bad decision to have a kid at their age. I began to put labels on these moms and their kids before I even got to know so much as their names. I viewed their situation as life ruining and I was the least bit excited to wait on these moms hand and foot for the seven days but, I put a fake smile on and walked straight into the nursery. Kids began flooding in as their mothers dropped them off, leaving the children drenched in their snot and tears. Each of us was assigned to one kid to nanny for the week. With my luck I got stuck with the kid who cried twice as much as the others. I knew this meant twice as much the work for me. My kids name was Zamire and he didn’t like to talk to me, he just liked to scream in my ear as he cried for his mom. I was not his mommy so I didn’t bother trying to get to know him or care for him in a loving way. I had no desire to provide or look after this kid. In the middle of night when Zamire would finally stop crying, when I finally had a chance to sleep, my thoughts