Cover Letter: While writing my draft I found it fairly easily to order the events of my narrative as they fall into

a simple chronological order. I did find it hard to not go into too much detail at some points though. I felt it would detract from the overall story if I talked about something like camp that has so many different aspects to it, for two straight pages. Throughout the essay I wanted to avoid going too in depth on my actual spirituality as well. Talking about Christianity as a whole for 2000 words would be most likely an uninteresting read for a non-Christian. At the same time it was a difficult balance to upkeep as my story was about my own faith. This being such a personal topic to me also made it even harder to fully open up about. I stil l dont know a lot of people in our class and yet Im opening up about one of my most personal experiences. There were many times where I had to exclude certain bits that wouldnt be appropriate for this paper but were part of my story as well. While quantity of things to analyze while writing this paper wasnt an issue I was worried quality may be. All of these events are spread out so much and most of my story was about gradual change so quite frankly I was worried all the events may blend together to the reader since there are so many. My main hope is that the reader is able to focus on the change as a whole and pick up pieces of that change through each of the events I am a part of in the story.

Kyle Gellatly English 1102 Agosta Critical Narrative: The story of my religious views and activities turning a 180 from bad to great begins in my Junior year of high school. At the beginning of the year my faith could be described as lacking and minimal. Yet around this time, when I hit a new low in my faith, I made one of the greatest connections of my life. I first met James Carter at a high school football game, it was an odd thing for sure as he was a Junior at NCSU standing in the student section at a high school football game. Though he was clearly much older than all of us he seemed intent on becoming personal acquaintances of all of me and my friends. He consistently invited me to YL events and after about the thousandth invitation I decided to take a step into the unknown and attend what is known as club. My first club was somewhat peculiar, I didnt know any of the songs, the skits were confusing yet extremely funny, and someone poured a whole gallon of milk on themself. While all of this confused me greatly I was really able to connect to the speaker at the end of the club. To this day I still remember his lesson, he talked about Revelations 3:16 Therefore because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. This entire sermon spoke to me tremendously as it reflected on the value of not just going through the motions as a Christian, as I had been, but going much deeper and being a Christian because you want to be one and you truly believe in the teachings of the Bible. After that kind of a wake call

to alter my old habits at my first club ever I immediately started to try to make it out to every single one I could from that point on. The next step in my faith through Young Life was attending campaigners weekend a huge weekend long, bible study/ beach retreat with hundreds of kid from Raleigh as well. This is where my one on one relationship with James grew tremendously. I developed an acute familiarity with my leader James at this point but I was still somewhat closed seeing as I hadnt seriously discussed my faith with anyone in years. Yet on the last night of our small group sessions something compelled me to finally take a leap of faith and confide my struggle id had with my faith to him and the rest of our group. I still remember concluding my testimony with the line: I do not want to be a Sunday Christian that just goes through the motions any longer. This was the major turning point in my spiritual life and would go on to provide me with many more great opportunities over the coming years. The next step in my spiritual growth was attending a bible study run by James at 6am every Tuesday before school. This was the first true test of my faith, as every Tuesday when my alarm would go off at 5:30 I would have to fight the temptation to just sleep in instead. Most everyone else I knew didnt have to wake up before school at 5 :30, and 90% of the people I knew through Young Life didnt go so why should I force myself to? The decision to go became one of the best I ever made in high school, the other guys that also attended became some of my best friends to this very day. Every morning I went to this I felt like I was finally stopping my trend of just going through the motions and finally pursuing my faith avidly. The significance of this bible study goes far past just me breaking that trend though. Our leader James put a tremendous amount of time and thought into these bible studies and as a result they were

extremely relevant to us and offered us real world advice based on our current stage in life as high schoolers. These bible studies will forever be cherished as the best ones that I have ever been lucky enough to attend. At the same time as I was attending this early morning bible study I was also attending another Young Life event by the name of campaigners. This was basically a larger bible study group that focused more on addressing our day-to-day struggles rather than delving into scripture. It was through this that I became even closer with my friends and James. There was a certain aura of trust and security that was given off by these weekly meetings as we were all completely open about everything with everyone. These conversations would not leave the confines of these meetings and everyone began to feel more and more comfortable talking about their issues with their faith or even just their lives. I knew kids in this that had never openly confessed to doing certain things or opening up about big problems in their lives that did at these meetings. It was amazing to say the least, and James did a great job of facilitating this environment, by offering advice and relevant scripture for us to study. This is where he recommended the scripture from revelations that has been my favorite over the past years to me. All facts considered about these meetings they just gave me a sheer sense of belonging to a group that I could belong to and identify with easily. Possibly my greatest Young Life experience/ best week of my life was at a Young Life camp by the name of Sharp Top Cove in Jasper Georgia. All throughout Campaigners, Discipleship, and Club James had been stressing for as many of us guys to come as possible. He constantly used the phrase it will be the best week of your life as if he was paid a million dollars every time he recited it. Finally, approximately 15 or so of the Young Life guys from my

decided to go thinking to ourselves; whats the worst that could happen?. Upon the first night of our arrival we were told to put on old clothes and were promptly blindfolded and led to a remote location within the woods of a camp. Little did we know we had been led to a midnight team building mud run in the middle of the woods. The rest of the week would turn out to be much akin to this activity wise but none of the activities could compare to the clubs that were held every day followed by our group cabin time. The clubs were an amazing environment as literally kids from all over the country of all different shapes and sizes were here fellowshipping together, it was eye opening to say the least. There were too many memorable events within these clubs to count so it is all most adeptly described as indescribable. The cabin times were like combining Campaigners and Discipleship and taking them to a completely different level. We would stay in cabin time for hours at a time just discussing pertinent questions about faith and our lives in general. The entire feel of the camp there was amazing. 75% of the staff at the camp were high school and college volunteers who received nothing in turn for working at the camp for a month at a time. The camp as a whole was far and away the most amazing environment I had ever had the pleasure of being a part of, put simply I was blown away by this week. James ended up being right as well, I can say with confidence that it was the best week of my life. After that summer had passed and my senior year of high school had begun I was handed a tremendous opportunity to truly give back for all the Young Life had done for me over the past year. I was offered to be a Leader at something call Wyld Life, which is basically the middle school equivalent of Young Life. The first one of their clubs I attended was absolutely insane to say the least. Excited middle school kids are unbelievably hyper and just absolutely

full of energy. It took all of the leaders full effort to even corral the kids into a controlled frenzy when the club started and everyone was going crazy. It was a magical experience seeing all of these kids so excited to be clustered together in this small room with hilarious skits being performed and loud music blaring. I continued to attend their meetings every other friday night with a great amount of enthusiasm until spring finally came around and I was not able to attend anymore due to Lacrosse. Over the course of these few months I was the first high school kid to help out with Wyld Life in Raleigh and the first to ever be a middle school leader at West Millbrook Middle School. Wyld Life was also where I met my good friend Austin Howe, a graduate of NC State he had put his entire life into developing Wyld Life in the Raleigh area, he had given numerous chances at well-paying full time jobs to have the opportunity to really put all he had into Wyld Life. My Wyld Life experience as a whole will forever remain one of the craziest and most memorable experience of my life. This brings me to the current stage of my Young Life involvement at the college level. Many people lose their faiths in college as they become so engrossed in their schoolwork or their friends to truly make an honest effort to pursue their faith. I entered college in August determined not to let that happen. I immediately entered with a plan to come into immediate contact with the Young Life branch here at Charlotte and boy have they ever been extremely kind to me. I have already met so many great new friends through this that I know will keep my faith on track to where it should be and will let me know when I may be going a bit astray. I will forever be grateful to the firm foundation in my religion that James Carter helped me build and will forever be thankful to Young Life for keeping my feet firmly planted in my faith.