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I’m losing time all over the place, but finding I enjoy the days with extra time on this nice deck until the council rips it out. I moved into this place temporarily, and the landlord told me the deck was going to be removed. I still don’t have a move date or a demolition date, but for now, I’m savouring the mornings waking up with this view.

I’m savouring a lot these days. I’m learning some things about being present as I carry on my lenten fast and don’t overwork. However, we’re now in the Easter Camp prep like actual week of events, so I am actually working more than my 20 hours a week in order to get tents set up and trailers and volunteers coordinated. Fortunately, I’ve got two amazing leaders who’ve stepped up this year with helping in my prep, and I’ve streamlined a few of my inventory processes, and I’m not working as many overtime hours as usual.

Also fortunately, Easter Camp is run by an amazing team who have got so much on their plates but still made sure to redraw our lines on site when we turned up Saturday and discovered the spray paint had cut off a few metres of our expected allocation. As my volunteers turned up to help, we were still resettling our ideas back to what we’d originally planned after half an hour scrambling to think how we could rearrange our tent set up if the marquee wasn’t going to fit where we told the company to set it up. With a bit of confusion about unlabelled tents, we also managed to set up 75% of the tents on Saturday only discovering one mouldy one that needed to be replaced and already having two back up tents in mind. Waaaaaaay better than the last two years scrambling for tents.

At one point someone asked me how I was doing as we got started, and I smiled and said, “Literally half the CYS team is chatting on our site to make sure we’ve got what we need; I’m feeling great.” It was a bit touch and go when we hit the mouldy tent, but I was so chill knowing I had three people we’d borrowed from last year who I hadn’t needed to use their tents and would likely be able to bring theirs out.

Before I got consumed by Easter Camp this week though, I put a hard end to my church hours on Wednesday for some beautiful TeachBeyond time. I got so excited to have some in person TCK care conversations, and I met this incredible couple who live in Paraguay and their youngest Paraguayan/Kiwi TCK. We had a great time talking about cross cultural stuff and TeachBeyond ministry and TCK care.

My TCK work is soul filling for me. I love the chance to meet new TCKs and learn about their adventures and share some of the ways I’ve heard similar celebrations or struggles among other young people who live between worlds. I do not take lightly the treasure it is to work with TCKs, nor am I flippant about the privilege of working with young people in Christchurch. By the grace of God, I plan to be in this line of work for the long haul, but I also know the very nature of working with TCKs and youth means that people move in and out of my life for snippets and seasons.

I’m not likely to make it to Paraguay, and this family has stronger ties in other cities than Christchurch in their New Zealand visits. While many of my youth will stay in Christchurch, they still graduate and shift into a different proximity to me when not a part of my weekly ministry. There will always be more youth coming through and new TCKs to discover, so I treasure that as a constant in my life, but I also treasure the temporary moments.

Easter Camp is a moment for my youth. This is the first year for my small group girls, and some of them are nervous about the unknowns, but Taylor and I are so excited for them to encounter Holy Spirit moments in the Big Top and beautiful faith conversations in The Village. Easter Camp is one weekend – it’s a temporary treasure – but it could change the trajectory of a young person’s life. Over the past year, I’ve prayed for the youth who responded during my message last year. One story in particular has stuck with me, and I pray regularly for this girl who lives across town. I’ve still not met her in person, but I know her youth pastor, and I know she’s being discipled to follow Jesus. I was a blip in her story, but I treasure the chance to have been a pointer towards Jesus.