(youth group at Acquire the Fire)
Wow! So it's been a long time since I've posted anything. Didn't mean to keep it all to myself!
The last month has been super-ooper busy, but I've been getting through (especially with the blessing of girl scout cookies.....).
Acquire the Fire was awesome. (Youth rally in Kansas City) We woke up to snow (after sleeping for 5 hours on the church floor). It was beautiful, but intense to drive through all the slush. I was driving the 15 passenger van with the entire senior high group and a youth mom was following with her mini-van. I slid through a red light on the way to the big arena Saturday morning.
The small lesson with no casualties was a blessing in disguise because the freeway driving was a lot worse. But God got us up the hill safely (I was praying out loud the entire time!) and we made it to the arena all in one piece. Walkie-talkies are wonderful inventions and I highly recommend them to anyone traveling. They are better than cell phones because you can
have short instructions or give short instructions without needing to hold it to your ear for a response. Very smart.
The speakers were amazing. The music was
wonderful. (unhindered is annointed!!)
and the kids had powerful messages presented to
them in ways that I think hit home to them.
(2nd pic of the church we stayed at and the beautiful snow we got to drive in)
(3rd pic: cold youth after eating lunch in the van)
More mission fundraising coming up. I am learning SO much this year! I've never done fundraising before (that I can remember) and I've certainly not spearheaded any of it before now. The youth are having a great time filming themselves doing wacky things and interviewing people and other random things. (Attention, I think, they love attention) But eventually I think they'll figure out that it's not about them, but about others.
I'm meeting with a youth once a week now. It's interesting being in the other chair. I've yet to see how well it will all go, but we've met up twice now, and she's really seemed refreshed when we've been done talking. So long as I stay in step with the Spirit and rely upon Him to hold me up, I'm confident that our conversations will honor God.
This morning, I gave a chapel to a group of young believers at a Christian high school.
Tyler, Terry, Katelin, Amber, Kenzie, Chelsie, Nicki, Ben, Chris, Ryan, Tika, Carrie, Richard, Emily, Martha, and Rachel. With much laughter and wrong names, I finally got all of them right by the end of the hour. What great kids. I shared some stories with them that I never thought that I'd share, let alone use in a sermonette. Some were old (3rd grade) and some were pretty recent, but I think that the septic tank image is what will really stick in their brains. It is starting to amaze me just what I'm able to say now to youth. I guess that I'm so extreme in my desire to leave them with a lasting impression of what Christ does for us, anything that would do that that makes sense, I say out loud. (maybe the whole plunger idea has permeated my thinking....)
(picture of our youth group's "Plunger Art". We painted with plungers. It rocked!)
I've been teaching about sexual and spiritual purity this month to my youth group and haven't had large crowds for it, but the kids there are getting good input and are making sense of it, so I chalk it up to experience and I'm learning how to teach about it and the guinea pigs there are learning how to listen to me (some are so patient!) while I figure it out, so, all is good there.
Spring break is upon me and my community so there is an air of refreshment stirring, and I'm enjoying it's breeze right now as I write with the freedom of my remaining day off.
:)
