Youth Lock-In

This weekend we got to spend our Saturday, Sunday with our favorite high school students, the Quest Youth Group. For the past year and a half Blake and I have been acting as assistant youth leaders at our church. This is a title we gave ourselves. We really just jumped in and started helping. Blake is all about ministry, but I had to be coaxed along. I'm so glad he convinced me to join in because it has been such a blessing and a joy.

We started off the weekend by spending a few hours at the Golden Harvest Food Bank. Our job was to take mountains of raw egg noodles and sort them into 1.8 lb ziplock bags that could be easily distributed. We created two production lines (boys vs. girls) and I was so impressed by the teamwork, diligence, and lack of complaining as we worked 3 hours in a warehouse. We sped along and sorted through 1600 lbs of pasta! The girls out sorted the boys by about 200 lbs, what what! It's neat to think of all the families that will benefit from those bags.


When we finished everyone was hot and sweaty so we headed to the pool to go swimming. There wasn't much swimming done, just several high energy games of pool volleyball. Then we headed to the Evans house to eat and hang out. We ate, threw frisbee, played charades and other games. After the sun went down, our games turned to pranks played on several carefully chosen church members/friends. Below are two yards that got marked "Quest" "Youth" with forks. We finally were able to go to bed at about 2 am - this is WAY later than my usual bedtime.


Blake was worn slap out and spent his Sunday afternoon like this...



We always have fun when we get together with the youth, but by far the greatest thing is just being part of their lives. We have a great group of young adults but some of them have stories that will break your heart. Their life lessons have been far harder than any I have had to learn. It has made Blake and I even more aware of how blessed we were to have stable and loving families.

One youth shared that he wasn't able to live with his mom anymore because of an adverse relationship with his stepdad. He asked Blake, "What does the Bible say about stepdads?" You can't say, the Bible says nothing about stepdads because that is not God's design for a family. You can't tell him what you really think of his stepdad or his mom for allowing another man to mistreat her son. Instead you have to try to come up with a biblically sound answer and offer encouragement. It has been a challenge and has caused me to strengthen my faith and knowledge because you never know what they are going to ask.

At the end of this month we are taking them to the lakehouse. We did this last summer and everyone really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to it and I pray I have a positive influence in their lives and am able to act as an ambassador for Christ.