good friends

Saturday night I got back from the annual RUF summer conference in Panama City. It was just as awesome as last year, but instead of having 8 people we had 27. We weren't able to go as many places (mini golf, local donut place etc) as last year, but it was still fun nevertheless. Having everybody there made me realize how great and solid my group of friends are. Everybody genuinely cares about each other and wants to know each other on a deep level. That's what makes RUF amazing. I can't say anything about any of the other campus ministries at Mizzou, but RUF is fairly small and so we all get really close, and know just about everything about each other.

That being said I want every high school senior, or for that matter any college kid who doesn't have a great group of friends, to know how amazing it is to have a group of friends like mine. I was hanging out with a friend of mine who's still in high school last night and listening to the details of Krew (the high school youth group I'm helping out at this summer) and life in general. Hearing about all the social problems and kids in general just being lost as to finding good friends makes me even more appreciative of my friends. I almost want to just look them straight in the eyes and tell them not to waste their time with kids who aren't going to take the time to really get to know them.

But, the reality is that it's nearly impossible to get an upcoming college freshman to listen to what you've got to say about finding good friends. I'll keep reiterating to them, that those college kids that are active in a campus ministry (in my case RUF) are "gold" as my campus minister Ross Dixon would say. The hard part about coming into college and choosing who you wanna be/who you wanna hang out with is the insane amount of options. You've got the dorm friends, extra-curricular friends, in your major/class friends, and campus ministry friends. And it takes a while to figure out that the campus ministry friends are the ones that are going to look out for each other and keep each other in check.

I can't say enough how amazing those RUF people are. They're rooted in God so you know that you can trust any advice they have, that they're not just pulling their opinions from pop culture. It's also especially great because we'll actually go up to each other and say "hey, I want to get to know you more" and you know they're being honest about it. Plus it's your friend that's saying it, not Ross Dixon or some other sort of leader where that's their job. It lets you know that they're genuine about getting to know you.

I've got to say that I probably wouldn't be where I am today without all of them. So basically the moral of this story is: get a good group of campus ministry friends, and hold on to them and you'll never regret it.