the memories will last.

It's been two and a half weeks since I came home, stepping off the plane into a storm of academics and real life, and yet it already feels like years. I desperately do not want to forget this time, those days spent in the Maritime Alps. And I won't, I know I won't. In the years to come, when I pull down the box of pictures from the top shelf of my closet, blow dust off the top, open the lid, and sift through it, I will remember these people and the memories we made together. I'll remember how we fearlessly climbed mountains and navigated down rivers, how we played games that kept us out of our sleeping bags until early in the morning, how we talked about what things resonated the most in our hearts, how we sang and danced to old Claude François and ABBA songs in the backseat of the car. I'll remember how arguing over who tackled who in which game was almost more fun than actually playing it, how crazy our French toast dessert turned out to be, how we came to a deeper knowledge of who our God is, and how I came to know and love these people as my brothers and sisters.

I will remember the memories and the people I made them with, and I will love them forever. I will take every excuse to see those photographs again, reading the scribbled notes on the back, reliving the memories in my mind. They are some of the moments that have made us, are making us. Making us people: real, lovable people. It was then that we forged the bond between us and the knowledge that, no matter how different our lives will be, where God will take us in the next chapters, we can always trace them back to the one summer we were all together, because the memories will last.

  

Ca a était super génial ce camp, tout à cause de vous et je vous remercie énormément. Je vois maintenant ce qu’ils m’essayer de dire sur les camps d’été ! Il faut faire pour croire !