Brave (but soggy) Young Men

There are too few real men out there. For some time, while remaining hopeful, I wasn't sure if I'd ever see the tide change. I never thought I'd see the day when there were more and more men willing to stand up for truth, take risks, and fight for beauty and life. Don't get me wrong, in no way do I think the tide has fully swung the other way, but it does seem as if we may have hit the low end of it and started coming back.
Interestingly enough my recent years in ministry with middle school youth have helped change this view. Sure, I know that most 7th and 8th grade young men haven't even begun to wrestle with puberty or navigate the gauntlet that society has set before them, but some of these guys are standing up for truth in ways I've never seen 'mature' men do. As naive as this sounds, and of course dependent on the task, I could name at least 3 young men in our ministries that I would trust before I would trust half of my peers. I'm not sure if that says more about my peers or about the youth in our ministries, but either way the difference is evident.
A more obvious example of bravery happened about 3 weeks ago when I had the distinct opportunity to lead a retreat for over 20 young men from around the Brazos Valley (from St. Joseph's in Bryan and St Mary's in Caldwell). It was a retreat inspired by the book "Wild at Heart" influenced by material from Jason Evert and Theology of the Body teachings. The goal of the retreat is to unpack how as men we image God in a particular way. Men and women are made in the image and likeness of God.  While the girls were on their retreat unpacking how they image God, the guys were out in the woods camping doing the same.
There are several high points I could use as our example of bravery, but the one that sticks out the most is what most would consider a low point. In the middle of the night we were drenched by a fairly decent sized storm. As the leader of the retreat I was worried. How many of these guys had put their tents up correctly and weren't getting wet!? How many were going to want to give up and go home? And this is exactly where the bravery came. In that moment when I thought I would hear every young man calling and wanting to go home all I heard was laughter and excitement.
I have to say I was a little shocked, but still being in ‘protective retreat leader mode’ I called out to all of them asking if everyone was OK and if anyone needed a dry place to sleep (yeah like they were going back to sleep). Only one young man needed another place, and rightfully so, his one man tent was more like a pool. Once we got him on dry-ish land all was well.
The next unmet expectation came the next morning. I fully expected to hear complaining, but other than a few jokes not one young man complained about the rain, or about the mess we had to clean up. To see young men standing up and taking what life had thrown at them was quite awesome.
There is hope for men, there is hope for The Church and these young men are a sign of that hope. Pray for them as we do, pray that they navigate the next several years holding on to Christ, holding onto His Church and that they become the men God has destined them to be.