CLUB-OF-LOVE

Happy Valentine's Day (a little late)!!! We did not have club this week due to school being out for President's day so another leader & I took some freshman girls to Fort Worth for an overnight. We ate at a great Mexican food restaurant, went to Marble Slab for ice cream, Starbucks for coffee & cafine, tried to go swimming but it was too cold, played card games, talked, ate candy, and actually got a few hours of sleep. The night was great & it was a great time to get to know these girls better.

We had our annual club-of-love last week. At our annual Valentine's day club we played a dating game, where a lucky girl wins a date with a guy who won several competitions to be the Young Life bachelor. It was pretty funny & hopefully a good way for kids to feel loved & accepted during the week of Valentine's Day. Cody ended the night by talking about the Love of Christ. He talked about Jesus healing the man with leprosy. He painted a great picture of the unconditional love of Christ, how he loves no matter what we look like, no matter the circumstances. We pray that we can continue to give great pictures of Christ so that kids will see all that he really is.

Here is a beutiful picture of us from club - I was Antonia Amore (like the mole??)

Thanks for praying - please continue to pray for camp sign-ups, and our contact work with kids, golf tournament (April 14), & rummage sale (April 18).

Well, what do you think?? That's right Young Life officially has a new logo, they revealed it to us at the conference last month in Florida. At first I didn't really like it, but it is definitely growing on me & I think I am going to really like it. The purpose of this logo is to make Young Life more recognizable all around the world. The new symbol comes with a new tag-line that I love, "you were made for this." I love this tag - line that we now have, b/c I hope kids will think they are made for Young Life, they are made for Jesus, & they are made for a relationship.

Highlights from club this week:
*We had some kids that are fairly new to Young Life come back to club for the second time.
*I got to talk about "unforgetable moments" in my life. After I shared some great & some not so great unforgetable moments I talked about the Royal Official from John 4 who went to Jesus & asked him to heal his son. I shared how this guy probably had a totally unforgetable moment after he went to ask Jesus to heal his son & Jesus promised that his son would be healed. I believe that this man had his moment as he was on his way home & encountered his servant who had come to tell him that at the very moment he was asking Jesus to heal his son, miles away from where his son actually was, his son was in fact healed. I believe that the Royal Official experienced 2 things in his unforgetable moment; 1. Overwhelming gratefulness for his sons health 2. Being overwhelmed by the power of Christ to simply say the words & heal his son.

We had some low numbers at club this week & I am praying that it was just because there is so much going on in the world of sports right now, not to mention lots of sicknesses going around. Please pray that we will continue to be faithful in this & that kids will be excited about signing up for camp.

Side Note - Cody got me this CD for Christmas & it is great. it is Caedmon's newest release & I highly recommend it, I have been listening to it almost every morning.

And We're Back!

After a nice break we have officially kicked off Young Life for 2008. We had our first club back last night & it was good. It was fun to be at school that day & hear the kids excitement for coming to club. So we are now officially back to crazy Mondays- going from early morning until late at night, but it felt good to get in bed last night after a long, but good day.

Highlights of the first club of 2008:
**Spam-or-ade - not Gatorade, not powerade, spamorade. Spam + water = I had to drink this last night.
**Laughing as kids drank coke out of a baby's bottle & trying to burp
**Watching 2 of our leaders, Cody & Dan (aka Ty Fro & Richard Slimons) "ice skate" on veggie oil.
**I got to talk about how Jesus came to“proclaim freedom to the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, & to heal the brokenhearted.” (Luke 4:18)

Thanks to all who continue to pray for this ministry. Please continue to pray in 2008. Pray that we will able to continue building relationships with kids. Also, please join us as we begin to pray for kids to sign-up for Windy Gap - we started signing kids up last night!

Ty Fro & Richard Slimons helping you "Fight the fat to get fit faster."

So far in 2008...

Well, since 2008 began I have been several places. We started out the year somewhere between Winter Park, Colorado & Arlington, Texas. I spent a few days at home trying to clean up Christmas, catch up on work & mail, & then I got on a plane & headed to Orlando, Florida. Every 4 years everyone on Young Life staff (national & international - about 4,000 people) get to spend 5 days together at an all staff conference. The great thing about this is that it is such a gift to be able to stay in a place that no one on YL staff could every afford to stay at, see all of our friends who do ministry around the world, & we get to be hear from great speakers & great leaders who have gone before us.

Some highlights of last week were:

*Jeff Foxworthy & giving us a list entitled, "you know you are a young life leader when..." (he & his wife are Wyldlife leaders in Atlanta - here is a link to him at the conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLtbMVolfAs)

*Donald Miller & other great speakers teaching all of the staff

*Being with old friends, I don't get to see very often.

*Seeing about 4,000 YL staff (including their spouses)- it was so cool to see all these people, b/c if there are 4,000 YL staff & each of them have relationships with at least 10 kids (which most probably have relationships with way more than 10) that means at least 40,000 kids around the world have a Young Life leader & are hearing the Gospel!

After five days at the conference I got on a bus & headed about an hour northeast to Daytona Beach for area director school. Before you get too jealous of me being at the beach, it is really not great weather here & I am pretty much in class from 7:45am to 10pm - with a few breaks here & there. I am learning a lot, the classes just get a little long.

I will leave you with a word of encouragement that was offered to us this morning - Chazok! Chazok! Venit Chazak! (Be strong! Be strong! Make each other strong!) This is the word of encouragement offered my members of the synagogue to encourage the person who had just offered the reading of the Torah.

View of the beach from my porch

Ski Trip

I think most have pretty much recovered from another great year on ski trip. Ski trip is a hard trip & sometimes I, along with others wonder, "is it worth it?" Thinking back on our freezing days up in Colorado - it was definitely worth it! Ski trip is nothing compared to the experience of going to summer camp or other things that we do during the year, but it is another chance to build relationships & for kids to hear the gospel. Kids definitely heard the gospel this year & there were many great conversations that followed the messages that were given at club each night.

Yes, we did get stuck again this year!!! It really is not common to tag on extra days to the end of every ski trip - I promise! The day we were getting ready to leave a storm blew in & had really, really strong winds. Because of the strong winds the main mountain road we needed to go on to get down the mountain was closed. Luckily we were able to stay an extra night at Crooked Creek & wait around the next day until the road opened (about 4pm). The night before we left my cabin of girls & I attempted to stay up all night so we could sleep on the bus. We made it till about 4am & laid down for a couple of hours...staying up all night makes for some really fun memories.

The basketball courts at camp - there was so much snow this year!

My cabin of girls - they were so fun

Some of our kids ready for skiing & boarding

Cody & one of our kids at camp

One of the highlights of the trip was that I had some family that got to come along. It was so good to see them, I wish I would have had more time to hang-out with them.

Uncle Terry, Dad, & Mom at club

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! Cody & I had a such a great Christmas break, it was so hard to start getting up early again this week! We spent Christmas in Abilene with lots of Cody's family. It was so nice to see everyone & we were totally spoiled by all the food, gifts, etc. that we came home with. This is after my birthday dinner at the Home Place.

I got to celebrate my birthday a couple of times this year & both times were so great. While we were still home Cody took me out to a nice dinner for just the two of us & then in Abilene we went out with lots of family. I had a great Birthday & even had 3 cakes - one from Snow White Bakery (thanks Aunt Dee), one homemade cheesecake from Cody's mom, & one chocolate cake made by Cody! I enjoyed all of them ;)

Here is our first Christmas tree - i was perfect. Thanks to Mom & Dad who have given me so many ornaments over the years, it was so fun to hang them all on our tree.

Here is Christmas with Zoe & Madison - they loved all their goodies!

Cody & I on Christmas morning with our stockings - I love my new stocking!

A couple weeks before Christmas I got to run in the Dallas White Rock marathon ( i only ran the half marathon). This experience was so fun & I hope to do a few more in my life time.

We did return on New Year's morning from skiing with some of our Young Life kids. We had a great trip & only got delayed about 15 hours because of snow. I will post about ski trip later....stay tuned!