Life & Stories of Cody, Emily, & Lucy Jane

Fall YL has been in full swing for a couple of months now & honestly it has been going great. One of the best parts about YL this fall has been the team that Cody & I are ministering with. Since last spring we have added 3 amazing members to our team. Keith, Jenna, & Jake are all new leaders & they are amazing. They have given our team life & the kids LOVE them. I am so thankful for them.

The first thing we did last week at YL was play a game called, "the tower of pain." We handed each kid a piece of big red gum & they were told to chew the gum, lick the wrapper & stick it on their forehead. I don't know if many of you have ever licked a big red gum wrapper & stuck in on your forehead, but after a few minutes (sometimes even seconds) of it being on there it begins to BURN. Anyway, after they had the wrapper on their foreheads' they had to get in groups of 10 & form a human pyramid. It was hilarious watching them do this b/c just as their group would get the pyramid down every ones' foreheads' would begin to burn, causing them to use their hands to remove the wrapper, causing their groups' pyramid to come tumbling down. For the first 5-10 minutes of club we did this & it was fun, kids' were laughing & taking pictures everywhere.

As the night went on we played a few more games, Cody came out once again as "Buck Norris" (not to be confused with Chuck Norris), & we ended the night with Cody sharing the story of Zacchaeus from Luke 19. He began by talking about hunting, he brought out a few things that are used in hunting to camouflage ourselves. Things such as, fox pee & unscented deodorant (used to cover up the scent of humans), camo masks & jackets, etc. He talked about the great lengths that a hunter will go through just to hide from animals & then asked the question, "what great lengths do we go to to hide ourselves from God & from others?" This led into the story of Zacchaeus & how he tried to hide from Jesus in a tree, but God sought him out & loved him for who he is.

Cody as "Buck Norris"

Sometimes when things are hard or I feel like I am just trying to keep things from crashing I think about why I still continue to do YL & usually when I am thinking about this God shows me many reasons. Lately I have been following the story about the lady who is selling her virginity on ebay. I been thinking about that girl a lot. Does she realize that there is hope? Does she know how much Jesus loves her? Does she know that someone already paid a great price for her? She must not know or she must not believe any of these things or she would not be doing this. What if someone told her about Jesus would she still be selling her body? I think about that & I think about all the kids I know & I pray they will know & believe the love of Christ & be secure in that forever.