CIY 2013: Oregon

Another new state, another culture shock for us all. There is no state in this country like Oregon, as I found out pretty quickly upon landing in Eugene, a small city about an hour west of Corvallis. Addressing me as we cruised past the dark green fields of the Oregon countryside, Lane warned about about on of Oregon’s most particular laws: “It’s illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon.”

I blinked. Lane’s kind of a jokester so I assumed he was trying to pull one over on me until he went on, at the urging of his wife, elaborating on the research he’d done on the law since he clearly found it as fascinating and mind-blowing as we did. “Oregonians like to be little different,” he told us. “Every gas station hires attendants whose job it is to pump the gas. It creates jobs and is supposed to prevent multiple people from having to breathe in the gas fumes.” But it’s totally cool for that one attendant to breathe the gas in all day. To each his own. Then Lane informed us Oregon was tax-free and the hippie capital of the world. As he made this last comment, we passed a house with a weathered old VW bus parked in front, which provided pretty substantial evidence for Lane’s claim.

CIY 2013: Texas

After a restful week in the CIY offices in Joplin, my team and I headed 8 hours south to Longview, Texas. We were immediately impressed with LeTourneau University from the moment we arrived on campus; the buildings were beautifully constructed and the staff who greeted us exuded every bit of legendary Southern charm. Since the week was MOVE’s inaugural Texas event, we were extremely encouraged by our first few days on campus, which added to our excitement of pioneering a new location for MOVE.

We were able to get an early start on loading into our venue, which made for a much easier beginning of the week. The Belcher auditorium at LeTourneau is every auditorium manager’s dream, and it would be amazing to see students filling all four levels someday, singing out praises to Christ. As it were, the 400+ kids who visited the week for the first time sat comfortably in the front section and, as I was to find out later, provided a very unique audience for our first week in Texas.

CIY 2013: Colorado

The road to Durango, Colorado, was not an easy one. My team and I began our trip a Friday afternoon and drove two hours west to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we met up with Mason and his team. It was good to catch up with Mason after his first full week on the road and it was great seeing another team at work. We helped the Tulsa team load out until about 2 am. I had to wake up at about 5:30 am to get my team ready for our 14 hour van ride from Tulsa to Durango, so when I got into the dorm that night, I lay down on the mattress, in my clothes, and instead of making my bed, pulled my fitted sheet over me for a blanket and slept deeply for 3 hours.

Downtown Durango 

We left Tulsa at exactly 5:58 am (2 minutes ahead of schedule), with Jordan and Trevor switching off as drivers for the next 14 hours as we crossed Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. I spent most of the van ride wide-awake, playing “navigator,” reading on my Kindle and listening to my OneRepublic/The Fray playlist on repeat. We hit Durango right around 7 pm, promptly met Chase, our director for the first week, at Homeslice, a delicious local pizza place, and then mustered up the energy to see Man of Steel.

We were able to sleep in the next day, but at a heavy price: our truck, which was due to be at Fort Lewis College, our venue, at 5 pm, was two hours late. We started loading in at 7 pm and worked until 4 am, only to awake again at 8 am for more loading in and preparations for the day. Our first week in Colorado was a speciality week for a megachurch out of Peoria, Arizona (basically Phoenix), called Christ Church of the Valley (CCV).

CIY 2013: Missouri

It might not seem possible, but I began my journey to CIY 2013 with even less certainty than last year. I had so many questions: What would it be like to return to CIY? How had CIY changed in the last year? How had I changed in the last year? What would it be like to be reunited with Morgan, Eli, and Kelly? Would the CIY staff remember me? What would it be like having Mason here? What were my teammates going to be like? Were they going to fight all the time? Would I ever learn all the names of the new event staff?