King Solomon first wrote about it thousands of years ago. Pete Seeger used Solomon's words in The Byrds' 1965 single, Turn, Turn, Turn. Life has seasons, a particular time in life in which to do certain things. I learned Saturday night and Sunday morning that the season had long passed for me to voluntarily stay up all night long with teenagers.
First let me say that if I ever did have to stay up all night long with teenagers again, it would definitely be with this group. Great behavior, no problems whatsoever. OK, that's out of the way.
Our church participated in and was the local sponsor/organizer for Global Night Commute. Global Night Commute was done to create awareness for the children of Uganda. Each night thousands of Ugandan children walk an average of 10-15 miles to escape being "recruited" by the Lord's Resistance Army. (For more information, click on the link above. They do a much better job of explaining the plight of these children than I ever could.) Almost 59,000 signed up for the event across the country, and Franklin had around 2,900 of them. Only San Diego had more at almost 3,400. Following the walk, those who wanted to could spend the night on the church lawn, much like the Ugandan children do after their long walk every night when they sleep in an abandoned warehouse.
Our family had signed up to do the walk a couple of weeks ago. Just 3 miles, we figured no problem. The bride and I had an opportunity for a dinner date Friday night, so we headed out to a new Mexican restaurant, Panchos. On the way out of Pancho's, the bride mentioned that Jeremy, our youth pastor, asked Meg if we would be spending the night as chaperones after the walk. I had actually thought about volunteering, but had quickly dismissed the notion. But I told myself I'd stay overnight if asked. When the bride told me about Jeremy's request, I couldn't say no. So I called and told him I'd be there but the bride wouldn't be because she's a wimp.
The walk wasn't tiring at all. The temperature was around 62 and we had some light rain. My guess is that around 2,500 actually showed up to walk. The Target parking lot was jammed full of young people and their parents dropping them off. We started around 8:00 and made it to the church campus about 10:00. We had a police escort on the walk. They stopped traffic and made sure that things were clear for us the whole way, so our hats are off to the Franklin Police Department. Traffic was backed up quite a bit on the route but most people were cool with it, especially when they found out what we were doing.
When we got back to church, I took the bride and Sara back to Target to retrieve the van, went into Kroger's for a few snacks, then headed back to campus for the night. I was able to bypass the police searching our sleeping bags and other bags. This was a HUGE time-saver, because it took them almost 2 hours to search everyone coming in. The sleeping area (and I use the term "sleeping" lightly because not everyone slept) was about the size of two football fields. Each chaperone had an area about 50 feet by 50 feet. Our job was to take care of our area and make sure no one made out, got too friendly with the opposite sex, or escaped. My guess is that around 1,500 stayed overnight. I brought a chair from the car and set up camp.
As for attempted escapes, I was alerted early on by someone on the youth staff about a group about 10 yards from me. Apparently she had heard that their intentions were to sneak out in the middle of the night. I paid particular attention to them and got up from my chair any time they got close to the boundary. The most embarrassing part of my night's duties came at around 2:30 when I noticed about six young men walking outside the boundary. I couldn't tell if they were teenagers or college students, but I had a job to do. I said, in a very friendly and trying-to-be-cool tone, "Hey, where are you guys heading?" A look of disdain shot across their faces. As they kept walking one of them spoke up and said, "Uh, we're with the production crew." I gave them a lame, "Oh, OK, thanks, guys." Apparently they were some of the guys who produced the film "Invisible Children." I felt like an 84-year-old man who had just yelled at the neighborhood kids for setting foot in his yard.
The first 3 1/2 hours went by pretty fast. Then as more and more people settled down for the night time seemed to drag on. I got a little boost of energy at about 1:30 when one of the volunteers brought by fresh Krispy Kremes and "forced" me to take two.
Although I was dressed warm enough for the walk, I hadn't really anticipated the winds during the night. The temperature only got down to the low 50's, but with winds gusting at up to 35 miles per hour, it felt more like the upper 30's. At about 2:00 I got my sleeping bag out and wrapped up in it. By about 3:30 I gave in and climbed into the sleeping bag and sat down in my chair. Ah, much warmer. My head bobbed several times from 3:00 until 6:00, but I was somehow able to stay awake throughout the night.
They didn't have to tell me to vacate the campus twice. I gathered up our stuff and piled it into the car by 6:00. Once we got home I took out my contacts and went to bed. I slept until about 12:30.
Most of the night, all I could think about was being warm. I kept telling myself that the first thing I'd do when I got home was get a hot shower and just stand under the water. Maybe being cold helped us all to think about how good we've got it here in America. We all chose to be out there, no one forced us to stay outside all night. Not everyone in the world has a choice.....
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