Youth Ministry Stories #2 (Lindsey Neislar vs. Heather's elbow)

I am compiling stories for the past 17 years of youth ministry. This one is from First Presbyterian Church, in Athens Georgia. Heather and I were newlyweds. I worked there around 2000-2002.

Youth Ministry #2 (Lindsey Neislar vs. Heather's elbow)

We were hosting a “Disciple Now” event with a handful of other churches. All of the students, about 150 total, spent Friday night and Saturday morning doing bible study, prayers, and worship, and Saturday afternoon we visited a nursing home. Afterward, we loaded up our 15 passenger van and began a 30 minute drive to our final event of the weekend.

I was driving the van, and my wife, Heather, was sitting in the middle of the seat behind me. Directly behind her was Lindsey Neislar, a middle schooler, and Kevin Weir, one of our high schoolers.

Heather was a newbie to FPC who the object of punishment from the youth, and Lindsey and Kevin made it their objective to aggravate her, which I wholeheartedly encouraged.

As a part of this torture, Kevin had delivered one of his famous theories on life. According to Kevin (at the time) people were really made of marshmallows. I could go on to answer all of your questions as to why he felt this way, but we'll all be smarter if I just skip it.

Lindsey thought this was an excellent theory, and went on to tease Heather, "I am really hunger right now. I think some marshmallow would do the trick." Lindsay kept pretending to lean forward and bite the elbow of Heather (who had rested her arm over the seat). Several minutes was all Heather could bear, so she threatened him, "If you don't stop, I'm going to elbow you in the face." Now, Heather would never actually do this, but...

Well, you can call it fate, destiny, God's provenience, but as Heather lifted her elbow to symbolically show her threat, I hit a HUGE pothole in the road. Lindsey's face did indeed met Heather's elbow as the bump in the road lurched him forward into it.

Lindsey immediately grabbed his nose and put his face down in his lap. When he sat back up a few seconds later his nose was pouring blood. Heather was bouncing around the van in a panic trying to find paper towels and saying “sorrysorrysorrysorry” over and over. Lindsey, however, had begun laughing and trying to cup the blood so it would not get all over the van. We missed the last “Disciple Now” session trying to clean up his face and the van. I had to get the rental van shampooed.

Needless to say, the marshmallow theory was never mentioned again.