Usually we have Campaigners for Young Life on Monday nights. But once a month we have a Young Life Club instead. Tonight was our first one of the year and we decided to try something new. All of our leaders gathered at the mall early and put on some sort of costume. Before the kids arrived we spread out in stores and restaurants all over Hamilton Town Center.
Our HS leaders met everyone at the playground and explained that we were having a "Find Your Leader Hunt." Their goal was to run with a partner to find all of the leaders and take a picture with them. Not an easy mission. While the kids were out look for us we posted pictures to the @hseyounglife Instagram.
We had about 60 kids show up tonight and the criss-crossed the mall looking for all of us. Unfortunately, the Segway-riding mall cops weren't loving our leader scavenger hunt so they asked us to leave. We had enough leaders to load up all our kids and drive over to Dairy Queen instead of meeting at the Cold Stone at HTC.
Only four kids found me so Dairy Queen was the first time I got to see all of the kids. We've got kids that come every week, a few that our new in the past couple weeks, some girls I haven't seen since last year or camp this summer. It's so fun when every one is together like this and double the fun when you throw in some blizzards.
We packed the booths inside and the picnic tables outside. The DQ employees were having a quiet night but we livened things up a little bit. Young Life tends to do that.
Once we all had our food everyone went out to the parking lot to sing together and hear Ryan's Club Talk. He played U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" first and just a few kids joined in which was kind of funny. But then when he started playing Chris Tomlin's "Whom Shall I Fear," almost all of the kids started singing with us. It was the coolest thing to hear them singing the words, "I know who goes before me and I know who goes behind. The God of Angel Armies is always by my side," so confidently.
Sometimes things don't go according to plan but they turn out even better than you expected. Tonight I'll remember Haleigh and Hannah sprinting across a parking lot to take a picture with me, a pack of kids being herded by Segways, driving a car full of screaming Freshmen girls, being reunited with Peyton and Rachel Wilson, singing in the DQ parking lot and hearing these kids pray for each other.
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