SWAT

     I've mentioned SWAT before, and meant to write this post earlier, just haven't had time until now. It's one of the BCM ministries, led by Samantha and Haley. With the full name of "Students With a Testimony", it's basically like a drama group, and we go around to different churches in the area and do skits and music and things like that.

     How effective a ministry tool is it? I'm not sure...but it's more encouragement-focused, anyway; a way to remind other believers of truths that can be forgotten all too easily. And like Elizabeth said once, it's a neat way to evangelize without having to go five thousand miles away from home and spend tons of money. As college students, we don't really have much spare time, and we're definitely on a budget. So that's cool.

     Samantha was a part of another school's SWAT group before she came here; and wanted to bring the program to NSU and the Tahlequah area. So she talked to Bob and Deb(the BCM directors) about it, and they were all for it, and then it was just needing to find people to join... She's a people person, can talk to anybody. And so that's what she did - talk to random strangers, explain what the idea was, eventually pulling together a group of twelve, including her husband Nick, Caleb and Holly.
     She talked to me about it early on in the fall semester at CCF, thought it sounded really neat, but wasn't sure if I'd be able to handle anything extra with the courseload I was taking, it being the first time I'd ever been part of "real" school, haha. And I thought I should try to maintain the tradition or whatever of being a part of CCF, since Mom and Dad were, and Ryan. So I didn't explore the BCM until sometime in February, but I liked it. And she kept asking me about joining SWAT, by late spring I decided that I'd at least try and see what it was like in fall.
      That's pretty much how everybody was recruited, word-of-mouth, pretty much.

      I said in March that if there was anybody of the Race of Joseph on campus, they'd probably be involved with the BCM in some way. And I was right. The organization itself, for being so large and multi-layered, has a remarkable home-like feel, and the SWAT team totally has a familial air. What exactly those imaginary roles would be, we haven't fully locked down yet, but they're there.
     Haley is kind of the drill sergeant aunt, Samantha the mom of the group, together they're keeping things together with a mix of strictness and sweetness. Bubba Jacob is something of the male leader, that kind of older sibling/cousin/cool uncle type. The rest of us would be an assortment of siblings, cousins, friends and neighbors. (Come to think of it, we could almost be a sitcom...Full House meets Friends meets "Messy Mondays".)

     I think Haley was a part of the group last year, now taking the role of co-leader, and Caleb and Holly were back for another ride. Then the new additions were me, Becca, Elizabeth, Bubba Jacob, Ja Li Si, James, Scott, Skylar and Susan. Others only came that first day and decided it wasn't for them; a couple other people dropped out for one reason or another, and then in a couple weeks Justin and TJ were inserted.

     Put us all together, and yeah, it'll be weird. But it's a good kind of weird, even if we do act like we may want to kill each other at times. We've got each others' backs, because that's what you do. As a group, we probably actually encourage each other far more than whichever audience might be watching. Because life is tough, things can be hard to deal with sometimes. Whether it's recovering from poor decisions pre-conversion or the suicide of a close friend, having autism or working as a janitor, the ordinary ups and downs of life or a myriad of putdowns people could apply to our personality quirks, there's safety in numbers(Ecclesiastes 4:12) and hopefully wisdom as well(numerous verses in Proverbs and elsewhere).

     We're short, a lot of us. Some of us wear glasses. Skin tone can be more ghost-white than tan. We love reading. We really enjoy drama(like, acting.) We'll throw quotes from every conceivable pop culture reference material possible into ordinary conversations. We'll make fun of each other incessantly, and sometimes compare hunting tales. We'll beat up each other up with ping pong balls and have long dinnertime conversations that seem ridiculous. And carpooling most places, there's two types of drivers: "No way I'm riding with them!" and "Why did I pick this car?"
     But all those things are okay.  Maybe they're part of what stories we'll tell of things that happened in college.  In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the Okmulgee group, with the same kinds of people: The Outdoorsy, The Intensely Focused, That One Couple, Those Along For the Ride, etc. And there's that same spirit of messiness that somehow always seems to come together to pleasantly surprise everyone when we need it to. There are roughly equivalent personalities to Annette, the Hollises, Billy, Mariah, to name a few. They're good people.
     About a third of us live in Ross, and then most others are nearby in Leoser or Logan. So we can complain about horrible living conditions and the hassles of dealing with people and broken things and insect invasions and all that other crappy stuff filed away under "Only at NSU..."

     We're not going to win any awards or anything, but every practice, every show, we're improving. It's just a really good group, making some friends, and I'm so extremely thankful I'm able to be a part of it.