This weekend
(November 4-6, 2005), we finally had our D-Now Live Out Loud weekend. It was awesome! I’m going to be honest and say that I
wasn’t sure if it was going to be awesome though. A week before the event, we had 21 kids
signed up. 21, when we were
expecting about 40-50! Brian and I
wrestled with the idea of canceling it altogether and really sought the Lord’s
face about what we should do. So
many things were saying “NO” like the low registration numbers and our
decorations lady backing out at the last minute and budgeting and much more, so
we struggled to decipher what was God’s voice on the matter and what was Satan’s
attempts to thwart our good plans.
In the end, we decided to change some things, but to have the event in
order to minister to those who had signed up. We were going to cut the band because of
budget, but they graciously offered to still play a couple of times for us for
free, so they did the two night sessions of Friday and Saturday. In the end, we had 30 kids come, so it
was about halfway between our really low number of 21 and our expected number of
40 or 50.
I had such an
amazing time with my girls this weekend, but I am worn out! I ended up staying with the older girls
at Brian and Brooke’s house with another leader named Andrea. My group consisted of Brooklyn, Tori, Amber, Bayli, Beckie, Kat, and Emily. On Friday, we broke into our groups and
then ate dinner. Then we had a game
time which I was completely in charge of, so we had sock wars. We actually had some injuries, but it
was fun, nonetheless. No injuries
were too serious…well minus that one black eye. Haha…she was OK though. Then we had our first session and the
band of David, Tim, Sarah, and Jessie (friends of mine from LU) led our
worship. We talked about Daniel
that night. Then we went to our
houses, where of course our girls were crazy and wanted to stay up late. Saturday, we got to the church and had a
morning session, which Brooke and I led worship for. We had the kids write down the time
lines of their lives because we talked about how important the day you get saved
is. Then we played some ropes
course games and then had lunch.
After lunch, we took the kids into town for bowling and putt-putt. What fun! When we got back to the church, we had a
rest time and then a third session which Brooke and I led singing for
again. We talked about the disciple
Andrew, which was pretty cool since
he is not as well known as others.
After dinner we had some games outside and then our last session which
the band led worship for again, though I sang with them as well. Our girls were pretty good at the house
on Saturday night, and they definitely did NOT want to get up for church on
Sunday morning! The wear of the
weekend was evident when I was trying to wake them up! In Sunday school we actually had 80 kids
which was a huge number for us and so AWESOME! Anyways, that was the weekend, and it
was awesome. Brian, Brooke, the
band members, and myself went out to lunch today after church. Since we couldn’t pay for them to play,
we took them to lunch at least. I
absolutely love Brian and Brooke. I
love the relationship that I am able to have with them and I feel as though I am
just getting closer to them as time goes by.
