Hi, my name is Blythe Peterson. I am a part of the
Suquamish CCUCC (Community Congregational United Church
of Christ) youth group. And, for those of you who
didn't know, most of the youth group here went to Hawaii
just about a month ago. And whoa, we had a blast.
It was one of the best experiences of my life.
There are those peak experiences in
your life, and this was one of them along with camp.
Whoa. I just made lots of new friends, worked
hard, played hard, and just had a really good time.
When I was in 5th or 6th grade, my
sister went on a mission trip somewhat like this, and I
just thought it was the coolest thing ever. She
came back all tan, she was really happy, she had some
new friends, and, from that point on, I always wanted to
get involved with the youth group when I was older.
So I did. However, it wasn't till a certain Fort
Flagler weekend camping trip that I started really
coming to church and hanging out with the youth group.
That's when I really found out about what that group was
about. And I thought it was awesome.
So I started going to church a lot.
And it was fun. I hung out, prayed, all that good
stuff. And then last summer, we got a very
generous donation so that our youth group could go
somewhere and experience something cool. So we
played around with the idea of a mission trip for
awhile, but nothing really happened.
And then we got Debe. And all of
a sudden we're going to Hawaii! I thought it was a
cool idea so I decided to go. I mean, I figured
that I had a good time at Fort Flagler; I could have
just as good a time in Hawaii, although I didn't really
know anybody in the youth group that well and I didn't
really want to. I figured I might come back with
more friends, or at least I would come back knowing that
I went to Hawaii and I probably would have gotten a tan.
Yeah.
So we started working for some money.
We washed cars, cleaned houses, washed windows, and
weeded a lot of gardens. Now, going into this, I didn't
really know what I was getting myself into.
Okay. So we go. We just
get up and go. On the plane five hours, not that
bad. It was fun. Then we get to Hawaii and
were "Wow, this is cool. It's pretty here."
Then we get to camp. We were all "Okay, this is
interesting. Sounds okay."
Okay, okay, so the first two days and
nights were a little rough, but we got over it.
Our schedule went something like this: Get up at 7
if the roosters don't get to you before that, eat
breakfast, work whatever projects Auntie Pat wanted you
to do, eat, go swimming or sightseeing. Mostly
swimming. Come home, eat, hang out, go to bed.
Not a bad schedule. Working was a little bit
tiring, but not bad.
But anyway. We went to Pearl
Harbor. And that was a pretty moving experience.
I don't know, we went to a lot of cool places, saw a lot
of cool things, met a lot of cool people. We just
did awesome things.
We had a lot of fun and now, coming
out of this, I get asked a lot, "What do I think I came
out of this with?" and I just laugh and shrug and say,
"What do you think I came out of it with?"
"I came out of this experience with
some of the best people I'll ever know. I came out
of this with a lot of new best friends. But I
guess what I'm trying to say here is, what I came out of
this with was, well, I guess there is no easy way to say
this, but I came out of this with a family." We
all of us here came out of this experience as a family.
And that is one of the most important things to me.
Family, or Ohana, as they say in Hawaiian. But it
is because of these people here that I really feel like
I have a place that I belong, a place that wants me to
be there.
This group of people are the funniest,
nicest, most accepting group of people I ever met.
I love everyone here with all my heart, because these
people right here are my family.
Thank you.
