Hello there. It has definitely been a while since I've posted. My apologies. Since September, the kids and I have had tons of fun with different events and stuff. In October, we had the Halloween Lock-in where we all dressed up (I was a pirate) and "trick-or-treated" for canned goods for the Food Pantry. We had a football player, a hippie, two hobos, and other fun costumes, I'm sure...I just don't remember them. I'll make it a resolution to keep up with this blog so I don't forget things. We only went around to a few of our church members' houses; but, with extra donations after the fact, we collected a lot of stuff! The Pantry was grateful for our donation. So, thank you to everyone who gave! Well, we stayed up all night long playing games, eating junk food, and rehearsing for Youth Sunday in the morning. It was a bigger project this time. We had almost all of the music planned and we came up with an entire dance to tobyMac's Diverse City. If I can get the video of it on YouTube, I'll post a link here. It turned out really great considering that the kids were exhausted and rather grumpy. Ha! Just kidding...but really...
In November, I took two of the jr. high kiddos to Bond Christian Service Camp for a weekend for the Jr. High Retreat. We had a great time making new friends, worshipping to awesome music, and learning how to live with "reckless abandon" for Jesus. One of the stories of the weekend was Joseph and how he went from being sold into slavery by his brothers to being an incredibly important person in all of Egypt. Unbelievably, a few days later, I found out that the Hoogland Center of the Arts in Springfield was playing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat a few weeks later. So, I gathered up a handful of interested youth and the six of us took a road trip to Springfield to see the show and it was AWESOME! With the extra time we had, we walked a few blocks down 6th Street to Cold Stone, which none of them had experienced before. Though the show was fantastic and the ice cream was delicious, they were most interested in the expired parking meters. Ha! That's an exaggeration of course, but the whole trip was just super fun.
Then, in December, we had a Christmas party and secret santa gift exchange where the gifts had to be made. Not everyone abided by that rule, but it was fun anyway. We played Christmas Trivia where, on our turn we either answered a question about the Nativity Story, Christmas movies, or had to sing a Christmas song. Guess which category nobody liked? Yes, every time someone had to sing, they forgot every word to every Christmas song ever played...ever. Teenagers are so funny! I plan a lot of fun events and things to do, but we also are learning a lot too. And now that Northside has begun our study on The Story, we will learn even more. I am all kinds of excited about The Story because it's so organized! I'm not the most organized person in the world (it's on my list of resolutions), so having such a great tool that's being used by EVERYBODY in the church is a dream come true for me. Now...to get the kids to do their homework. That will be a challenge, I'm sure.
Just recently, to bring in the new year, we travelled to Shiloh for a New Years Eve Eve Lock-in. (What is it with me and lock-ins anyway?) Well, I've been corresponding with other youth ministers about this particular event for months and it was big! Another youth sponsor and I took six kids to this event and we all had a ball. There were tons of different things to do, so the kids were never bored. We adults were in charge of the big, inflatable bungee run from 12:15am - 3:00am and there were tons of kids wanting to do that the whole time. Did I mention that there were 250+ kids at this thing?? It was crazy! But, again, there were plenty of things to occupy them. Like, lazer tag, makeovers for the girls, basketball, dodgeball, ping pong, an inflatable velcro wall, Rock Band, other video games, worship time, a talent show, food, and tons of people to hang with. It was nuts, but super fun! I'm sure we'll do it again next year...or really this year.
Speaking of this year, I think it will be even better than last year! I'm still very new at this, but my hopes are that I'll get the hang of things, get more organized, and get a handle of what I'm teaching so that we, as a youth group and as a church can grow in numbers and in our individual walks with Christ so that we can go out into the world and do what we all have been told to do: spread the Word of God. Please keep us all in your prayers that we will have the courage and the tools we'll need as God's plan for us unfolds. Let's go on an adventure, shall we?
God bless!
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