"I went to Riverside too. I think we were friends."

Smoon and Vettie's room at Drake was filled with cool crafts. I took pictures of a couple that I wanted to try to duplicate. After school today I made this one and I love it.

 

It's actually a lot easier to make then you would first expect.

1. The glitter background is actually just a piece of glitter scrap booking paper that I found at Michael's.
2. The words are paint penned on the inside of the glass. Smoon and Vettie had an anchor on theirs and I found these words online. I figured out how to flip the image before I printed it off to make it easier.
3. I taped the flipped image to the front of the glass so it wouldn't move around as I traced the letters on the back side of the glass.
4. Put the paper in the finished frame and you're finished.

I've also found a use for all the scraps I cut off the end of my friendship bracelets. I've got a huge bag of the short pieces now. I'm braiding them together into several super long cords that will be the lanyards for wooden name tags this summer at camp. I'm predicting they'll be the next big thing.

Today I finally gave friendship bracelets to the rest of the 8th grade boy Lunch Crew. Two had already "earned" them with a 360 basketball trick and by making one for me, but I had boy-colored bracelets for the other five guys. Their reaction was one I won't soon forget. These 13 and 14 year old boys were beyond pumped to get a bracelet. They were freaking out as they had me help tie them on their wrists before they ran to class. One of the boys came back twice in the afternoon to say thank you.

Young Life is the best. Or in the words of one of my YL girls, "Young Life makes Mondays suck less." She's right. After a week away on Spring Break I was more than ready to be reunited with this Young Life family. Natty, Maggie and Maddy all had stories of their adventures. I love that Abby and Nat Rat weren't even trying to look like twins but it just happens because they're soul mates.

 

I've so missed the freshmen girls Julia, Olivia and Kaelyn. Tonight I got to meet Morgan for the first time. She was on Spring Break with Julia last week so of course Julia told her all about Young Life and taught her how to make bracelets. I was thrilled when Morgan pulled out a zig zag bracelet for me at the end of Campaigners. We're officially friends now.

I'm thinking Nick, Ryan and Carter need to form a band. They were all just jamming out at the beginning tonight and then Ryan invited them to play the first couple songs with him. Their trio was a sweet thing to watch. I hope they'll do that again soon.

I love getting to lead with friends like Jackie and KCraig who love God and these kids so much. Their faith just oozes out of them and you just know that they believe with all their heart. I'm so thankful that our leadership team just keeps growing and evolving. Tonight we had three new potential leaders come to check things out. Sometimes we freak out about how many kids we have compared to leaders, but God is good and faithful and he will continue to meet our needs here.

We read through John 19 together tonight. The chapter is an eyewitness account of Christ's trial and death. It was really cool to just read the whole text together, stopping to talk about confusing things or to ask questions.

These girls each have a foundation of faith--they go to church, have been coming to YL, went to camp or read the Story with us last year. The more that they hear the gospel the more it takes root. There are still some things they're not sure of but they are so much more confident in this story than they were a year ago. Now they can articulate the facts and what it means to them.