At our monthly team meetings, one of our crew members discusses one of our five values: strength, courage, commitment, heart, and trail-blazing. This is Angie’s reflection from this month’s meeting.
Each month, we talk about what these values mean to YACC on the inside, but young adults dealing with cancer in Canada inspire everything we do.
Our biggest fundraiser is Shave for the Brave. There are a lot of brave people associated with the event, but the original “brave” are the young adults we serve; their courage is incomparable.
Last week, they took a big leap and travelled to the lesser travelled side of a little travelled province for Retreat Yourself Adventure 2016. They gave up five days of routine, as uncomfortable as those routines may be, because they had courage to see what else is out there. Unlike other traditional adventures in Thailand or Costa Rica, there’s not a lot of info about Retreat Yourself Adventure. The event is held in a place with poor internet connections and is almost an hour from the nearest airport. They came to meet strangers and push their comfort zones to learn to live and love life a little more.
Then, they took on challenges that were designed to be tough. They hiked dozens of kilometres. They climbed a mountain. They zipped over the forest, hundreds of feet in the air at 80 km/hr. I’ll admit, no matter how dedicated I am to something, if it’s tough or uncomfortable, I’ll have involuntary thoughts of ways to chicken out. My courage is spurred on by seeing YACCers face challenges, crush them, and come back for more.
That’s why we’re here.
