Pioneer Triumphant
Kiki clattered through the front door sun burned and grinning from ear to ear. She had just arrived home from a three-day adventure in living like the Utah pioneers who crossed the plains pulling hand carts. For the next hour she chattered, re-living the entire adventure out loud for me. It was a mish-mash, out-of-order retelling, as such recountings generally are. I sat and listened because experience has taught me that the best time to hear about someone’s trip is within the first 24 hours after they get home. After that, life moves on and details fade. I expected Kiki to use hard, tiring, miserable, and hot as the primary descriptors. Those words did get used, but not until she’d put the words beautiful, amazing, cool, and interesting to extensive use first. I can tell that this trip was one of those watershed events in her life. She got to see her youth group peers in new ways. She got along peacefully with people she did not expect to. She got to see the goofy teenage boys stand up and take responsibility. The talking wound down and she headed for the shower. In the next few days we’ll have to weather many a complaint about her 19 mosquito bites and her painful sunburn, but given the chance to do something similar again, she would go. Mosquitoes and all.