Sunday, February 12, 2006

Ward EPC Jr. high retreat

What a great weekend! Can I say this...well, it's my blog, so I think I will...I love being on retreats! I don't know what it is, but I love it. This weekend I had the great honor of spending the weekend with Blake Maurice, the Jr. High director at Ward EPC and his students and leaders. Man, it was a blast!

Ministry Highlights:

1. Traveling with my family. Tracie is brilliant, she makes a dingy retreat room feel like home in a matter of minutes. Not only does she consistently pack everything for all 5 of us, she does it so well and we always have everything we need. The kids do so well on retreats. Youth Pastors who never travel with their kids because they don't think their kids can adapt to a new schedule, we say fewey! Our kids are incredible.

2. Tubing with my kids. We got to go tubing as a part of the retreat and I tubed with Bobby on the small hill and Bekah went on the big hill with one the Ward leaders. Bobby did get hurt though. I am an idiot! It was before we were even on the hill, a couple of jr. high boys we screwing around and I didn't know Bobby was behind and they ran right into him. His forehead bruised up pretty good.

3. Getting to encourage jr. high students to Love God passionately and to Love others selflessly, PRICELESS! I love it, these kids were great and they laughed, they listened and I think they learned. I love getting a chance to encourage students, what an honor. I would do this every weekend if I could.

4. Spending the weekend with Blake the Jr. high director at Ward. Man, this guy is sharp. He is the kind of the guy that just does things right. He handled the weekend beautifully even with a little accident at the beginning. He brought a charter bus and a little bus from church and the little bus was making it up a very icey hill to get into camp and it started to slip and then started to slide back down the hill. Well, it turned sideways and crashed right into the charter bus, shattered a window and broke some mirrors. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

5. I know this will sound selfish, because I know the "guest speaker" has a little impact on the over all success of a retreat, but it's always really re-affirming when jr. high students come up to you and let you know that you did a good job. I love when a 12 year boy thanks you for the great speech, priceless.

6. I love hearing jr. high students sing. It is awesome.

7. I love talking with jr. high students who don't' fit in. I love looking for the chubby, over weight, not dressed to good, goofy jr. high students and I just love to hang out with them.

It was a great weekend and I am so thankful that God allows me to do this.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you much for your kind words. It was a pleasure to have you. You did great, all around.

You blog like a wild man.