2021: A Year of Renewal and New Beginnings

Decemeber 4th, 2021. Republished May 25th, 2024

It was December of 2020. I was standing in a new place. Christmas music was playing in the background. It was a place I didn’t really want to be. I was uncomfortable and alone. I was approached by a stranger, who was soon to become a new friend. He introduced himself to me. He was a senior and was into robotics. He seemed nice, and he didn’t appear to be an outgoing person. This was the beginning of a new season of change and renewal in my life.

At the end of 2020, I was looking for a change. We had been visiting churches, and we thought we had found one that we liked, but we were not getting connected, and we had reached stagnation. In the beginning of December, I tried a new youth group. At the time, I had only a few friends outside of the youth group, and I didn’t really know all of them. Determined to make new friends, I forced myself to go to a youth group, and I forced myself to try to get connected. The only problem was that I was not outgoing and would never go up to someone and introduce myself. So I just stood around and didn't know what to do. This lasted until a senior pulled me into the youth group. During the first month or so, he would come over and talk to me. It gave me a way into the youth group, and it was a big reason why I’ve gotten to where I am now.

The first big thing that I did with the youth group was the winter retreat in February. Because of Covid, we did not stay overnight, which was actually the only reason I went. I still pretty much knew no one and was not interested in staying overnight somewhere with a bunch of strangers. Nothing too big ended up happening at the winter retreat, but just being there helped me to become part of the youth group even though I barely knew anyone.

From then until August, I continued to go to the youth group, barely missing a week, and life groups started up, which were another good way for me to get connected. Sadly the youth group stopped during the summer, but the life groups continued. As soon as registration for the local missions trip opened, I was ready to register, and I’m glad I did. It was the next big thing in my growth at the youth group.

The missions trip was big. It was the farthest out of my comfort zone that I had ever gone. It was a three-day event for middle and high schoolers hosted by our church. We were split into groups and assigned places to serve each day. The groups served at VBS, a housing authority, around the church, etc. The event involved multiple churches, but we only saw the other churches at some evening events, and we didn’t work with them in our groups.

During the missions trip, all the high school boys stayed overnight at someone’s house. I still didn’t really know people all that well, and it was a little stressful to figure everything out. It was only three days long, but a lot of stuff happened. It was hard work but pretty much the best three days ever.

We were each assigned to our own group. For some reason, I was placed in the “doing random stuff” group. We pretty much just went and did random different things to help. For the first and second days, we weeded and spread mulch. On the third day, we helped paint at a private school, and we helped a little around the church. On two of the days, I also helped with a Camp of Champions that we ran at a housing authority.

On the second night, one of the churches participating held the end of the missions trip celebration (most of the churches end it one day early, so we still had another day). It was fun and cool to see so many people participating in it together and celebrating together.

At the end of the local missions trip, everyone said goodbye to the seniors as they were going off to college. They were the leaders and the examples in the youth group. Everyone was really really sad to see them go, but multiple younger people in the youth group were ready to step up, and in the weeks/months since, I have seen many people step up to serve and lead.

After the trip, everything felt like it went back to normal. Also, I will note that through most of the year, it never felt like much was happening, progress felt slow, and I couldn’t see what was changing, or how far I had come. So much had happened though. I had become recognized in the youth group, I knew all the high school boys’ names. I played games with them, I had joined the youth band, and I had spent a year with the youth group. I barely recognized all this progress until the exact one-year mark since the first week I had gone to the youth group.

That week reminded me where I used to be, of the changes, and of the progress, which I had made. On Tuesday of that week, we learned that they had reimplemented masks at the youth group, and they also moved back into the sanctuary (similar to how it had been when I started youth group). On Wednesday, I walked in and just stood in the middle of the room. It felt like I was looking back in time, everything looked as it did the first week I had been there, but I had changed.

It was December of 2021. I was standing in a familiar place. Christmas music was playing in the background. It was a place I really wanted to be. I was reflecting and thinking, and I approached a stranger, who was soon to become a new acquaintance. I introduced myself to him. He was a freshman and was into whittling and hunting…

I had changed. 2021 was a year of renewal of hope and of new beginnings in my life.