Well as some of you know, I took my youth group and about 12 other kids to Super Summer (a Christian camp in Salina) and it. Was. AWESOME!!! I wish SO bad all of our youth group could have gone, but at least most of them got to go. Let me just put this on the record though---if you're pregnant, do not and I repeat do NOT volunteer to be a sponsor for 14 teenage girls!!! Yes, I said FOURTEEN teenage girls! While it was one of the best experiences in my life, let me just tell you what our room looked like. Imagine a space about 20 feet long and 14 feet wide (a very small rectangle) crammed full with 8 bunk beds and 14 girls, each of whom (including me) brought at least two bags. Now thankfully, I claimed a bottom bunk, so there was no climbing involved, but the bunks were stacked so low on top of eachother that I had to ROLL in and out of bed because if I wasn't completely horizontal, I hit my head every time I moved. So I looked like Chuck Norris doing some kind of special horizontal round-house kick whenever I got in and out of bed.
Then, each of us had brought at least one grocery bag of food and God FORBID any of them get up to throw away the trash from that food. Instead, they used the trashcan as a basketball goal and surprise, surprise, they all suck at basketball :) I kid, I kid. But really.......there were candy wrappers, crushed cookies, water bottles, pop cans, sucker sticks, etc. all over the floor.
Yum.
There's nothing like waking up at 6:00am and rolling off your bed onto a bag of cheez-its laying on top of some spilled soda. That's the other thing--did you note that I said waking up at SIX a.m?!?! Excuse me Jesus, but since when did it become a good idea for Your camps to start so early???? And lights out wasn't until MIDNIGHT! Don't these people know I go to bed at 9pm?? And you had to wait in line to shower and pee! Now, I know it sounds like I'm doing a lot of complaining, but these are the things that make camp memorable and I say them with fondness in my heart :)
Now let me tell you about how AWESOME it really was!! We had about 75 kids at camp give their life to Christ and 3 of them were ours!!! Praise God! I got to see how awesome my kids were. I gotta tell you, I witnessed some pretty outrageous behavior among other youth group kids and if I wasn't impressed with how well behaved my kids are before, I certainly am now. They are so well mannered and truly seeking God and it just makes my heart so full and thankful. So if you are a parent, friend, sibling, etc reading this and you know someone in my youth group, take the time to appreciate how awesome they are! We had not ONE problem---no fights, no drama, no boy-girl stuff. It was great. And the Towanda Methodist youth group and the Baptist youth group went to super summer together and now they've decided to combine. So we had 12 kids at youth on Sunday! It was so great to see growth and teens who are excited for Jesus!
And I myself grew as a leader and as a person--I was convicted of a few things and am doing my best to change them. Rush of Fools was the praise and worship team and they were such a breath of fresh air! Praise and worship always gets me so happy and excited and of course, it makes me a cry. There's this one song called Hosanna and there's a line in there that says, "I see a generation, rising up to take it's place with selfless faith." Oh MAN, did that hit me hard!! Yes, this generation is harsher and cruder and louder and more advanced in knowledge of certain things that they maybe shouldn't know about yet at that age, but there are SOME kids who are CRAVING Jesus Christ and I got to see that and it just made me think how much more support and love they need. And I'm excited to get to be there for them. So although camp had it's hard ships, it was SO worth it and SO awesome and hopefully I will be going back next summer!!
On a side note, my baby is the size of an avocado this week :) Oh how fast they grow up!! It seems like just yesterday it was the size of a poppy seed!
Then, each of us had brought at least one grocery bag of food and God FORBID any of them get up to throw away the trash from that food. Instead, they used the trashcan as a basketball goal and surprise, surprise, they all suck at basketball :) I kid, I kid. But really.......there were candy wrappers, crushed cookies, water bottles, pop cans, sucker sticks, etc. all over the floor.
Yum.
There's nothing like waking up at 6:00am and rolling off your bed onto a bag of cheez-its laying on top of some spilled soda. That's the other thing--did you note that I said waking up at SIX a.m?!?! Excuse me Jesus, but since when did it become a good idea for Your camps to start so early???? And lights out wasn't until MIDNIGHT! Don't these people know I go to bed at 9pm?? And you had to wait in line to shower and pee! Now, I know it sounds like I'm doing a lot of complaining, but these are the things that make camp memorable and I say them with fondness in my heart :)
Now let me tell you about how AWESOME it really was!! We had about 75 kids at camp give their life to Christ and 3 of them were ours!!! Praise God! I got to see how awesome my kids were. I gotta tell you, I witnessed some pretty outrageous behavior among other youth group kids and if I wasn't impressed with how well behaved my kids are before, I certainly am now. They are so well mannered and truly seeking God and it just makes my heart so full and thankful. So if you are a parent, friend, sibling, etc reading this and you know someone in my youth group, take the time to appreciate how awesome they are! We had not ONE problem---no fights, no drama, no boy-girl stuff. It was great. And the Towanda Methodist youth group and the Baptist youth group went to super summer together and now they've decided to combine. So we had 12 kids at youth on Sunday! It was so great to see growth and teens who are excited for Jesus!
And I myself grew as a leader and as a person--I was convicted of a few things and am doing my best to change them. Rush of Fools was the praise and worship team and they were such a breath of fresh air! Praise and worship always gets me so happy and excited and of course, it makes me a cry. There's this one song called Hosanna and there's a line in there that says, "I see a generation, rising up to take it's place with selfless faith." Oh MAN, did that hit me hard!! Yes, this generation is harsher and cruder and louder and more advanced in knowledge of certain things that they maybe shouldn't know about yet at that age, but there are SOME kids who are CRAVING Jesus Christ and I got to see that and it just made me think how much more support and love they need. And I'm excited to get to be there for them. So although camp had it's hard ships, it was SO worth it and SO awesome and hopefully I will be going back next summer!!
On a side note, my baby is the size of an avocado this week :) Oh how fast they grow up!! It seems like just yesterday it was the size of a poppy seed!
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