It was a quick transition from the DC trip back to school this morning. The best part may have been seeing DC kids in the halls and during lunch. I think it's really cool how everyone LOVES the DC trip. Everyone thinks that it was fun and wishes that they could go back again. Now I'm talking it up to the 7th graders so maybe we'll set another enrollment record next year.
By 4 o'clock I was at the HS boarding a bus full of our Young Life friends. We were heading down town for a Young Life Club on the Pacer's practice court followed by their game against the Hawks.
I was pumped to be able to hang out with all of these girls on the way to downtown. We caught up on the last few days and laughed at KCraig's ridiculousness and yelled a lot. We discovered Kegley can come to YL camp with us this summer and I almost cried tears of joy.
The bus dropped us off downtown and we met up with the rest of the Young Life people waiting to go inside Banker's Life Fieldhouse. 11 different schools all brought about 50 kids to tonight's Young Life event--that's about 600 people.
I was pumped to be able to hang out with Mariah, Hayely and Natty B tonight. These three upperclassman are such a consistent part of YL and I love hanging out with them.
I love all of these freshmen girls and was pumped to play with Alli Sams, Anne, Olivia, Julia, Kaelyn, Genna, Sam and Erin all night long. They're some of the kids I see most often and I love when our lives get to overlap. That's one of the greatest parts of Young Life-- we get to experience camp together in the summer and keep being part of one another's lives all year long.
Everyone in the group got special wrist bands and they led us all down into the basement.
Linda was selling Young Life mud love bracelets. They're the perfect compliment to our friendship bracelets.
Young Life Club was on the Pacers' practice court downstairs. The room slowly filled with hundreds of Young Life kids and leaders from all over the city. It was like having Club at a Young Life camp.
Our guys were stoked to be in the home of Paul George and the rest of the team.
HSE Young Life represents. We were all flipping out, so full of energy for the night. It was a collection of old and new friends sharing in all of this.
When Julia gets excited she gets REALLY excited. Tonight she was pumped to play and meet new friends and not worry about homework for awhile.
We sang a couple songs together first, including a basketball version of Lorde's Royals. Then the YL staff person for each area came on stage and they gave the kids a twitter challenge. The person with most creative ending for "Young Life Camp is >>> than..." would win a $100 for their camp trip right then and there. The winning tweet was, "Young Life Camp is >>> than Morgan Freeman narrating my bathroom visits."
We had a contest to find the Ultimate Young Life kid. Jack and Nat Rat were the two representatives for HSE. Each round they were looking for the fastest kids to complete the task-- get a school ID of someone else, bring back a freshmen on your back, hold a piece of someone else's chewed gum, keep an inflated balloon in the air longer than your competitors and then pick up short paper bags with your mouth, hands behind your back, both feet touching the ground. Nat ended up getting second place out of all 22 kids-- very impressive.
One of the most fun parts of the night was being around the YL people of all the different areas. I got to see my friend Rachel who is a North Central Young Life kid. Katie and Abby are both Butler students and YL leaders that I think the world of. I got to chat with Mary Ellen, see Mark and Tony, and Linda and Annie. Young Life attracts great people.
Being in the Fieldhouse for the Pacers' game was pretty awesome. Of course we cheered on Paul George and the rest of the guys but watching the Pacer dancers, the wheelchair game during halftime, the trampoline dunk, the Simon Mall shot contest and people dancing on the jumbo tron were all fun too.
Ice-cream served as the main course of our dinner, birthday cake and mint chocolate chip deliciousness.
Just sitting in the stands and talking with all of these girls was so much fun. Blue collar, gold swagger and so much fun. We had a spontaneous worship songfest on the bus on the way home. It's so cool to me that these kids know and love these songs about God and his love for us. We rolled back into the HS parking lot at about 10:30 and said good-bye.
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