Life & Stories of Cody, Emily, & Lucy Jane

Happy Halloween!

Ok, can you tell what Cody & I are? We are ketchup & a french fry! Thanks to Hannah who donated some of her old sing song outfits to me (that's why the french fry is sparkling) I was able to throw together some costumes in about 5 minutes. Cody was a good sport, as I know this was not his first choice!

This week at Young Life we celebrated Halloween by playing a wonderful game of couch-o-rama! Couch-o-rama is simply a scavenger hunt with a couch. We divided all our kidos into teams & gave each team a couch (well, one team had a recliner), we threw the couches in the back of pick-up trucks and headed out around town. Each team had a list of places they had to go find & take a picture with their whole team sitting on or around the couch. For example each team had to find a pool & take a picture with everyone sitting in front of the pool with a couple of kids in the pool! Another place was a dumpster, they took a picture on the couch in front of the dumpster & got bonus points if kids were actually in the dumpster. Anyway, the scavenger hunt turned out to be a great hit & it was even funnier with all the kids in their costumes.

After the scavenger hunt I talked to the kids about the sacrifice that Christ Jesus made for us so that we could live forever with him. I talked mostly out of John 3 - I repeated John 3:16 several times throughout my talk as to emphasize that Jesus came so that "everyone who belives" in him can live forever. I love that what Jesus offers us is for everyone, not just the best people we know, not just those who never miss church, but everyone. I then spoke about the next verse, verse 17, & how it says that Jesus came to save. He came not to punish or condemn, but to save. I am thankful that what Jesus offers is free to all & I pray that we will continue to give this message clearly to our high school friends & that they might accept this gift.

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world, through him." John 3:17