Goal Accomplished!

I did it! :)  I ran 13.1 miles!  It was awesome!

After we ran we went to the magic castle!
All in all a great day!!

2 Weeks and 1.1 miles to go...

In two weeks at 6 am I will be at this starting line in Anaheim ready to run 13.1 miles all around Disneyland, the streets of Anaheim, Angel Stadium, California Adventure, and then the finish line in Down Town Disney. Training for this has been a very interesting self-surprising time for me. When I first started training back in January, I could not run a full mile without stopping to catch my breath. 

Well, tonight my running buddy Jon Piper (not "The Jon Piper" my intern Jon Piper) ran for 2 hours and 1 minute without stopping completing 12 miles!!  We could have probably done the full 13.1 if we needed to, but we were also glad to stop. :) So 2 weeks and 1.1 miles to go!

Ignite 8-14-08

Message: Back to School--Use your talents
Message Quality: Average
Student Response: Below-Average (pretty rowdy)
Attendance: Average

All in all it was a good night. It was cool to see that kids remembered to come to youth group, seeing that it was the first day of school. I decided not to do worship but to have more videos and fun on the first night back to school, which is probably a reason the kids were so rowdy. (fun word to use, rowdy...yep)

Announced "Something Amazing," the event that is happening in September for the high schoolers. I think students really were excited about it. Should be a great event! Here is the video that we used:

All-nighter poster

We are having an all-nighter coming up for our Jr. High ministry.  It's going to be awesome!  Here's the poster for it.

Crossroads 8-11-08

Message: Back to School--Use your talents
Message Quality: Above-Average
Student Response: Average
Attendance: Below-Average

We took 2 weeks off due to all the trips we had going on, so i wasn't sure if anyone would remember to come. But our core kids showed up and we had a good time.

The message was about using the talents God has given you. I defined a talent as something entrusted to you by God to develop or use to the fullest for His honor & glory. I heard from one of my leaders that he loved the message and that the idea of all things in life being a talent from God entrusted to us finally clicked in his brain. The funny thing is that i have given this message before in our HS and the leader was present. So i don't know if i just delivered it better or....yeah...Oh well

All in all a good night!

Under Attack...

So we have one full day and then one half day left of the HS Road Trip, and I feel completely attacked tonight.  I have been beaten up physically these last few weeks with Jr. High camp-almost losing my voice; Leadership retreat-having horrible blisters on my feet; and then this week it started day 2 with terrible jock itch (i almost couldn't walk), and yesterday a really bad sun burn (even though i applied sun block 3 or 4 times in only a couple of hours).  At first i just thought it was part of the job, but the more i look at it i think i am under attack.  

Tonight the speaker talked about reclaiming love.  When we got back in the vans there was such tension you could slice it with a knife.  There's normal HS drama going on between some of the kids, and people are tired and sun burnt so they don't have the best attitudes.  When i say people i mean all 17 of us--including the leaders.  When we got back to the hotel one of my leaders asked if we could just drive back tomorrow morning.  At first i thought he was kidding, but he was very serious.  He felt like he would be wasting his time to be here any longer.  As i talked to him i realized the spiritual attack our group is under!  First, the enemy went after me, the leader, but when that didn't work he also worked through drama amongst the kids, and went for the other leaders.  So i called all the kids to a meeting and asked who wanted to go home.  I explained that staying meant serving at the dream center with a good attitude and going after God.  After i talked for a while i asked for a show of hands who would like to go home and not one person raised their hand.  When i asked who wanted to stay everyone raised their hand.

Please pray for us if you read this in the next couple of days!  The enemy doesn't want us to serve at the dream center, he doesn't want us to like each other after the trip is over.  He wants us to remember nothing but stupid stuff rather than what the speakers talked about.  So please pray that we can grow toward God and know Him better.  Pray that the Holy Spirit would make His fruit evident in our group.

Pray for me as a leader to have strength. :)

off to a road trip

Sorry blog for not talking to you.  it has been a super busy 2 weeks and now i am off in a 12 passenger van to Anaheim and all over! :)  15 students, 4 leaders and a whole lot of fun!  LA here we come!!