Winter Camp

So my last post referenced our youth group's trip to Winter Camp on the mainland. It mostly talked about my gastrointestinal problems, and I mentioned I would actually talk about the trip later so here we go. I honestly, was looking forward to the trip as a refreshing retreat. We had worked really hard to get there, and the last couple weeks especially were the big final push, so I was really looking for fun with our kids, and pure, wonderful, rustic relaxation. Thankfully, I really did get this, so I am blessed by that.

We (Annie and I) also felt like we grew into our new jobs so to speak. Being promoted in September brought some changes, but sometimes we had a hard time 'feeling' like we had the real ministry job and responsibility of it. This winter camp trip really marked a change for us in that. From airport transport, car rentals, to setting up tickets and rentals at the mountain, and leading the kids throughout the weekend, we really felt like we stepped into our roles as youth directors. We are really thankful about this weekend and how it worked out for us as youth leaders.

We are also thankful because we really noticed how young we are this weekend. Not only did Annie feel like she was constantly mistaken for a pregnant teen, we also noticed every other youth director was about 30-45. Anyway, we had a chance to talk with other youth leaders and really were able to appreciate our youth and inexperience. We don't have everything together and we know that, but this gave us the grounded reality that we are just plain young for what we do and have plenty of opportunity to grow and mature into it.

We were all blessed during this weekend with Forest Home's program. They gave our kids such a great and new experience in terms of worship and youth events. We hadn't a chance to experience the big, wild, crazy fun youth events with enthusiastic and experiential worship. There were about 600 students total and when you have that many kids, and you run a program well, you get a great experience and that's what we had.

The speakers were also awesome that weekend. We were blessed by hearing from Troy Murphy, Jeff Wagner, Chuck Hunt, and our very own Sean Palmer and these men challenged both us and our students to a deeper and more real relationship with Christ. They threw out a stat at the beginning of the weekend and the rest of the weekend's talks sort-of circled around that. Anyway, they related the stat that about 80% of high school Christians will leave their faith after they leave high school, and they then took it the step further to say, that if that is true, 80% of the students in attendance would leave faith after HS. Anyway, the weekend focused on the theme, "The Jesus that..." and the speakers went on to relate different aspects of the biblical Jesus. Anyway, I was challenged personally to know that we, as youth leaders, must try to connect these students with God in a way that leaves them changed and unable to deny or walk away from God.

I know that there really isn't anything I can do on my own to connect kids with God, so I see the challenge as "how can we set up situations where kids really meet with God?". Anyway, this is my ongoing challenge that was brought out by our winter camp weekend. Well that's all from me for now. PEACE!!!!!!