Four new best friends!

Have you ever wondered, "How do you become a YL leader?" Good question.

If you're a college freshmen or sophomore you go through new leader training for a semester before being placed on a team. Tonight was the night new leaders from both Butler and IUPUI would be placed at four different schools in the Indy area.

Linda, whom runs the training, sets up this gigantic spider web of yarn through her entire house. It took her four hours today to wind and tangle and loop and stretch out all of the strings, one for each leader. Members of every team came to celebrate and anxiously waited to see who we would get to join the ranks of Carmel YL.

There was a lot of cheering and clapping going on as these new leaders made their way around the house hurdling in some spots and crawling in others. I would have been so excited and intimidated and nervous and hopeful if I were in their shoes.

And then they would find the end of the string right in the midst of their new team. We got four new leaders and each time one of them found their new string we erupted into screams and then fell into a giant group hug.

The brand-new Carmel Young Life leaders surrounded by most of our existing leaders. (Holy cow there are a lot of us and we're missing Krafty, Tyler Bender and Meisha.)

I can tell already that Courtney, Audrey, Eshan and Laura are fantastic. We went to MaryEllen's house for dessert and introductions. All 16 of us sat in a circle and introduced each other and asked questions and laughed and even had a serenade from Courtney. I'm so excited to keep getting to know these girls and walk with them as they step into being a leader.