Wet Shorts and Headphone Attacks

This recollection is back from the summer of 2008, when I was going into my sophomore year in high school. My youth group had traveled down to North Carolina for a week to participate in a program called JAARS, an non-profit organization that helps support Bible translation around the world. This is a great cause, however, this trip was not my cup of tea. We stayed in the woods in an area set up to have the atmosphere of Papa New Guinea as we learned what it was like to live the missionary life. We slept in chompas, which are basically tiny log cabins on stilts. Picture something like this:

 Yes, friends. I slept in something like this, except the door was just an open space, there weren't any windows and there were large spaces between the pieces of wood. Right up my alley, isn't it?

We also didn't have any electricity, so we went to the bathroom in outhouses that smelled like the end of the world. I've never smelled hell and thankfully I never will, but it probably smells like those outhouses. I'm not exaggerating. That was the worst thing my nose has ever experienced. Also, when we went to bed it's like all the bugs in the state along with their extended families came out to play. And they were big. Very big. But not big enough to make me cry at night in fear that they'd touch me.

Just kidding, that definitely happened.

But it was scary! I would be lying in the chompa in my Mexican hammock (which I chose to sleep in because when I laid down in it the sides would wrap around my whole body to protect me deathly insects) and it was like an army of bugs were surrounding it just waiting for the perfect time to attack. And with the spaces between the wood, a baby bear could probably climb through, never mind cockroaches and spiders. One night a bat actually came to visit another chompa. Thankfully it wasn't mine. However, my two chompa-mates did find a spider in ours one day and when I asked about its size they wouldn't tell me because they didn't think I'd sleep again.

Well, all of this got to my head. One night, I was wrapped up in my Mexican hammock with my iPod, which tuned out the army of insects. As I was falling asleep, I heard and felt something land on my pillow. I shot up as if I had woken up from a nightmare and shouted to my friend Kailyn, "TURN ON YOUR FLASHLIGHT !" She woke up, managed to find the flashlight, and pointed it at my pillow to reveal what life threatening species had come to visit me. And when she did, it turned out to be a vicious, dangerous, man-eating...

... headphone. The headphone that had fallen out of my ear and hit my pillow. Yikes.

After Kailyn laughed at me and went back to sleep, I eventually managed to get my heart rate back to normal and catch some z's myself. But only for a few hours, because I woke up in the middle of the night. This was my least favorite, because it forced me to remember that I was in the dark woods lying in a hammock surrounded by lethal headphones. But what was even worse than this is when you're in the dark woods lying in a hammock surrounded by lethal headphones and you have to pee, because that means you have to get out of your hammock and face it all, only to enter the end-of-the-world outhouses that make you gag until your eyes water. So you could understand why I would hold it for as long as I could.

Well, I tried for a good twenty minutes to avoid leaving my protective hammock, but after a while I had to go so badly I knew I had no other choice but to sprint down the trail to the outhouse. But the thing is, I waited so long that I did not give myself much time to get there. When I got up, I couldn't find my flip flops. After realizing I wasn't going to find both of them, I put the first one I could find on my other foot. I'm fairly positive I had two left shoes on when I began to tinkle right on the spot. I b-lined it out of the chompa and down the trail, but by the time I got to the outhouse there was nothing for me to leave there, and a trail to prove it that started at the top of the stairs and ended midway down the dirt path.

Perfect.

After everything was said, done, and changed into, I went back to sleep and woke up the next morning, only to walk down the stairs to my youth pastor, who said, "Molly, I hear your headphones were out to get you last night." And per usual, this girl was the laughing stock of the day (it's okay, I take ownership of that daily with pride now).

Sometimes we have to face our fears (usually not wetting ourselves in doing so). Sometimes taking on the things that scare us helps us to get over these fears, and other times it just makes us stronger in experiencing them. This trip took me way out of my comfort zone. But I think we all need to go through things like that in order to develop character. Did I have the time of my life there? Not necessarily, but I look back on that trip and am glad I was able to have that experience. Usually we don't realize how much we take the things that comfort us for granted until we're outside of our comfort zones.Whenever we're in a spot like this, we need to remember Romans 5:3-4: "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." It's the times we feel the most miserable that bring the times we feel the most strength. I can say I've been through much harder times than sleeping in the woods in a chompa, but I can also say God has brought me through each one with more character and more hope that He will be with me through these times until He brings me out of them. The trip also made me have a whole new appreciation for those who make a living out of their comfort zones. Next time you talk to a missionary, thank them for the work they do.

And next time you talk to a Mexican, tell them they make quality hammocks.

Song of the day time! I have always loved Coldplay, but their new album "Ghost Stories" is beyond my expectations. Please do yourself a favor and listen to it. Here's a magical track off of it, which I love in particular not only because of Chris Martin's beautiful falsettos, but because of the unusual EDM feel it has. Enjoy "A Sky Full of Stars".