In January 2009, I jumped headfirst into a position with which I had no experience and no understanding of the time and emotional demands. I became a youth director.

I knew it was what I was supposed to do. I guess you could say I got bit by the "youth bug" in the summer of 2008 on a mission trip to Washington, D.C., with our former church. I had never been on a mission trip, and have to admit I chose this one mostly because of the destination. I had been to D.C. before, but it had been 16 years. My husband, who had never been to D.C. also was going on the trip. I selfishly refused to stay home while he went to D.C. and signed up. While there were challenges to the trip, I found it extremely rewarding and came back pumped to work with the youth. The first Sunday my husband and I returned to our new church after the trip, we marched right up to the associate pastor and informed him we were ready to work with the youth group.

At first, I sat back and observed. The current youth workers told me all their names, but that information lasted in my brain about 30 seconds. Since our first encounter with this group was a pool party, the youth themselves pretty much ignored us. For the most part, we did not interact with them. Intimidated.

The next meeting was pretty much the same, minus the pool. I sat back and watched as they planned to film a commercial to promote a backpack drive they were sponsoring. I watched as jobs were doled out, not knowing at the time the jobs were assigned to people who would not follow through. I still did not remember their names, though some were beginning to stick a little longer than 30 seconds. Maybe 90 seconds this week.

All this built up to the disaster that hit the following week. We (my husband and I) were left alone with a group of teenagers we had known only three weeks!! We were excited about watching them film a commercial. We couldn't wait to see the written script and watch the teens direct themselves to create something fantastic, but where were the other youth leaders? Surely they did not leave us alone with these kids already? What were we suppose to do with them? We had no idea how to film a commercial! Nevertheless, that was exactly what was happening. We were alone.

So after an hour and a half of trying to film a commercial with no script, no direction, and no idea what the kids' names were, we finally got it done. Frustrated and angry, this night began my months of complaining every Wednesday night.

There were meetings. What do we want to do? What curriculum do we want to use? There was little communication:

"I have class on Wednesdays and I will be unable to lead for a few months." 

"I am going to start a Bible study outside the youth group for my son and his friends. I will be back when it is done."

Neither happened. The associate pastor and another adult came up, and the four of us (my husband, the pastor, another adult and me) began. One of the first lessons was for the kids to write down what they would like to do that year in youth group. There was the usual lock-ins and other fun stuff, but they also wanted to serve and have lessons that related to where they were in their lives. We proudly posted these things around the youth room to remind us of what the kids wanted to do. Still, there was nothing. Lessons were a disaster with kids talking over the adults. The kids fought and argued with each other. Some cut each other to the core with their words and actions. Because I still was getting to know the kids, anything I said carried no weight whatsoever. There was a lack of consistency among the four adults as our personal lives sometimes took us away from the youth for brief stints. More frustration. More complaining on Wednesday nights after youth group. Yet, I was waiting for the other youth leaders who were "taking a break" to return. I desperately wanted to take over, but waited out of respect for them. They had been at it longer. They had more experience. Surely they were better at leading the group than I could ever be.