Writing thank you notes to all the leaders and partners from the mission trip is a nice way to spend the first afternoon back in the office. It kind of lets you re-live the best thing about any mission trip, which is the people. It gives you an excuse to swim in gratitude for as long as it takes to thank everyone you need to.

Yesterday I exhausted the remains of my supply of the ban.do note cards I snapped up in bulk from the clearance shelf at a Starbucks over a year ago, so I had to walk to the local Papyrus store to get some more. The new ones are fine–nature pictures with Thoreau quotes–but they’re less fun. The old ones were bright pink and said things like, “You’re Killing It.” I loved those.

We played group games on the mission trip every night, in the sitting room of the retreat center where we were staying, as the first part of our daily devotion and reflection. Nothing complicated: Four on A Couch, Telestrations, things like that; nothing requiring more than paper and pens. I’m so glad we did.

Group games grease the wheels of conversation and introspection, and so I think anybody who works with groups of people–particularly young people–should have a stash of them in their back pocket. Two sources I’ve found really valuable for building that stash are Playmeo (the subscription is worth it) and Youth Ministry Great Games. Also, the book Moving Beyond Icebreakers demonstrates a useful way to structure a meeting or youth group so that the games are part of the work, and not just a time-filler.

Two years ago I started planning two dedicated blocks of group games in all my weekend retreats. Now I’m going to be sure to plan for them on every mission trip.

Me to youth as we’re packing to come home:

“Make sure you have everything: water bottles, hats, shoes–whose shoes are these?!-chargers, socks. Everything. If you leave it here it’s gone.”

Me to the chaperone on why such an announcement is needed:

“They’re teenagers, so they’re paying attention to what’s in front of them just right now. Plus they’re tired after a long week, and now that they have their phones they’re distracted.”

Me in an email to our host site, as we’re riding in a van to the airport:

“I left a navy blue hardbound Moleskine notebook with a white pen attached to it in the sitting room of the house. If found, can you please mail it to me at  . . . “

To celebrate the end of school, one of Daughter’s friends had a sleepover. Daughter had cheer practice til 9:00, so I drove her to the sleepover after. The dropoff was like so many other things:

Me: “Bye [Daughter]”.

Daughter: “Uh-huh” (doesn’t look up).

I drive home thinking of how quickly kids grow up.

Then she calls at 2:30 in the morning and asks to be picked up. She doesn’t feel well. She’s not comfortable. She wants to come home.

I drive her home thinking of how long it seems to take to grow up.

When the final bell rang on my last day of fifth grade, I came home and sat on the front stoop. I remember this clearly, in a way I don’t remember the last days of any other grade save 12th: it was sunny, and I was holding in my hand a pencil I’d bought in the cafeteria that day, one of those striped ones with the NFL team name down the side. In my memory it’s the St. Louis Cardinals one (the Cardinals moved to Arizona the next year).

I remember a very satisfying sense of accomplishment. I had completed a major chapter in my life, and I was aware that it was the longest one; neither middle school nor high school would take me six years! Everything was possible. Summer and the rest of my life held incalculable possibility, and I was ready for all of it.

Daughter finishes fifth grade today, and I hope she feels something like that, even though she continues at the same school for 6th-8th grade. By the end of the next year of school, most of my boundless 11 year-old optimism had buckled beneath the weight of adolescence and an imposing junior high hierarchy. I expect Daughter may experience something similar in the next year or two, and so I hope the closing of this year can be all delight.