Pastor Carlisle asked me to gather some stories about Project Transformation for the May newsletter and I asked my daughter, Rachel to think back to her college student self and write about what Project Transformation meant to her as a college student (see last week’s newsletter). Her memories of how her summers with PT changed the trajectory of her life made me go back in time and remember why I love this ministry so much and how it has changed me and helped me grow in ways I never expected.
I had just sent my 4th child off to college 13 years ago when Courtney Aldrich (Lawson) called me and told me about God’s whisper in her ear saying “PT Tennessee” and would I join her in exploring the possibility of bringing PT to Tennessee. I immediately said “yes!” and Courtney asked me to go with her to do a site visit at the PT home base in Dallas, Texas. I had heard Rachel and Courtney talk about their summers in Dallas and I just didn’t get it but certainly did after that site visit. It was the summer after Kate and William had gotten married in England and the Dallas kids had written letters to them and planned their own reenactment at a Dallas site. The Queen Mother was the sweet Hispanic lady who fixed the lunches for the kids and she had a marvelous wave as she entered the wedding. The interns were the primary characters in the wedding and the Goodwill wedding dress was marvelous on “Kate.” I’m pretty sure this was the first wedding many of the “campers” had ever attended and they were so excited. The reception which included a first dance was topped off with gold fish crackers and juice boxes for all. I was all in!
Back in Tennessee, we quickly discovered that launching a small, faith based non-profit is hard work but what a team Courtney and Erin (the first program director) assembled. I will be forever friends with many of the folks that joined that early Leadership Team (including Pastor Vona Wilson) and will always value their insight and wisdom. And then came the young adults and what a remarkable group stepped forward in faith that first summer when truly no one knew what they were doing, but I learned some great lessons in faith from that early group. I will never forget Morgan as Jonah in the whale’s belly and the little boy holding my hand saying, “I don’t want to go into the whale’s belly.” I remember Katie dealing with an awful breakout of fleas at one of the older churches. I remember Zach and Kara as boyfriend and girlfriend and 3 years later going to their PT wedding. I remember Keller getting so embarrassed when a young camper announced in a loud voice he didn’t want to read with “the old woman” (me) and how she escorted him to her office for a talk. I remember the little girl who told me she hung around the church we were in when she was home by herself while her mom worked because she knew it to be a safe space. I remember reading an early reader book with a little boy and trying to help him when he couldn’t get the word “orchard” and the realization that he had never had the opportunity to see an apple tree. I remember Rachel and the two interns she worked with taking their middle schoolers down to Martin Methodist College for a visit to a college campus and how remarkable it was because the only college graduate most of the kids knew was their school teachers. I remember realizing how much I had to learn from all these children and college students and how thankful I was they shared their stories with me. Mostly I remember helping at 61st Ave. UMC during the first week when all was chaos and I said to Courtney, “none of us knows what we are doing…I don’t like this.” And she very calmly looked at me and said, “But Janie, we will all be forced down on our knees asking for God’s help and that is where it all truly starts.” I was on my knees as soon as I got home and I have never second guessed that marvelous wisdom from my much younger friend.
If you don’t “get” PT like I didn’t so many years ago, I hope you will give it a try this summer whether by reading with kids, breaking bread with the college interns and listening to their stories or helping at a Family Fun Night. There will always be glitches in this ministry because it is driven by young adults who are learning as they go and kids who like to push all the buttons on those college interns while those interns are trying to convince church volunteers that “we’ve got this!” But it is probably in the glitches that the faith and understanding grows the most because that is when the reminder comes that we need to go down on our knees. Give Project Transformation a little bit of your time this summer. There’s a good chance you will make a difference in someone’s life.