Friendship Bracelet Club hasn't officially started yet, but I was missing seeing my 8th grade crew for longer than .5 seconds in the hallway. This afternoon I invited the girls in both of my 8th grade bible studies to stay after to help make FBC posters and then to just hang out together.
We're already talking about FBC shirts for this year and dreaming about what they'll look like even though we won't order them for awhile. What if this year FBC stood for something other than Friendship Bracelet Club like...
Four Bad Cats
Frolicking Bears Collide
Fine, But Crazy
Fists Break Clavicles
Fierce Baby Catchers
Fridays Be Cool
Friends Bring Cats
Fresh Baked Cupcakes
Friends Because Cookies
Funny Bunny Carrots
French Baby Carrier
Family Because Camp
Fat Baby Cheeks
Funky Bear Cardigans
Fairly Borderline Crazy
Which FBC would you want to join?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a very important announcement. TAYLOR PORTER IS BACK IN TOWN! She's my homegirl from Carmel YL day one when she was a Senior in HS. Five years ago Taylor and I got to live life to the full together-- riding bikes all the way to monument circle, a mystery trip to Tecumseh, ski weekend at TWL, Campaigners every Monday in Narnia and the basement room, heart to hearts over dinner, epic dance parties, Wyld Life Clubs, Top 10 Ways We Saw God In Action and blades for life. She's one of my favorite people that I've ever met. I can't wait to hang out with her loads this year.
Instead of our regular Monday night Campaigners, Young Life had a Paint War at the park tonight. Julia showed up first and I was so excited to see her. I'm pumped for her to be a counselor for the Camp T field trip next month and I just love hanging out with her. I was surprised and so happy when I saw Sam, Kylie and Chad all come tonight. These three are Seniors now but they were in my very first class of 7th graders when I started teaching in Fishers. I run into Sam and Kylie a lot but I love when they come to YL.
There were so many freshmen at Club tonight-- I hadn't seen Johnny Miller or Andrew Myers since the last day of last school year and I was so happy that they showed up.
We had an army of HS kids and leaders ready to have a blast and annihilate one another with paint. The throwing of the paint would come soon enough, but first we would have club.
Jackie and I love these freshmen girls-- Mary, Liz, Linnea, Emma and Mallory. They're so goofy and fun together.
I love that I've already gotten to see Haleigh Devoe so much this year. She's one of the original YL kids and in so many of my memories of Club, Campaigners, Camp and living life together. I'm thrilled that she's a Wyld Life leader this year.
We played Conga Line Rock Paper Scissors with everyone in the field. The teams grew slowly until the final two people faced off to find the ultimate winner.
Next every grade became a team to spell out HSE YOUNG LIFE one letter a time. Every kid had to be part of every letter. I loved seeing them all run around and dive onto the ground to make the shapes as quickly as possible.
The Juniors spelled out all the letters at once together.
The Seniors were the fastest and so amped about singing, "I BELIEVE THAT WE JUST WON" that they couldn't pose for a picture.
The Sophomores were so quick and just barely got second to the Seniors.
The Freshmen had the most people on their team, which makes things difficult, and they still did an awesome job working quickly together.
I wasn't sure how the next game would work out but ended up being incredibly messy and perfect. There were five rows all lined up facing the first person. They passed a bag of flour (that had huge holes poked in it) back over everyone's head. The last person had to crawl through everyone's legs with the bag of flour.
They had to complete that pattern of passing back the flour and then having someone crawl forward three times. As you can imagine, everyone got sufficiently covered in flour pretty quickly.
It's so exciting that there are so many Seniors involved with Young Life this year. Last year we got to hang out with Mariah, Hayley and Sherisa and we'll miss them so much. This new crew is a whole lot bigger. Tonight I was so excited that Peyton, Devin, Kylie, Hannah, Sam and Madison all came. I'm excited to hang out with them this year.
We called up about 8 guys and 8 girls to compete in the next relay. Someone from each team put on a shirt, ran across the field to a bucket. They dipped their shirt in the bucket of paint, put it back on and ran back to their team. Slowly the shirts got more and more covered in paint which left each competitor more and more covered in paint too.
KCraig gave the Club Talk tonight and I was totally entranced with her story. I love that KCraig is real. She tells it like it is and her honesty makes kids love her. She told us about how growing up she only occasionally went to church on holidays like Easter and Christmas but that was it. She thought she had her life together and that everything was fine.
In college she met a friend named Alex who had a significant impact on her. One day he started talking to her about Jesus and he talked about him like it was someone that he loved, someone that he had a relationship with. That was totally new to KCraig.
Her conversations with Alex pushed her to start her own relationship with Jesus and to find out more about this person that had come for her. She wasn't perfect and she said she'd been really close minded about the whole faith thing. But now she was seeing there was a different way.
Tonight KCraig told us the story about the woman at the well. Jesus went to her and met her in all her imperfections. He knew that her life was a mess, but he offered her living water anyways. He offers each of us the same thing. Where ever we are in our life, Christ is here for us. He wants to show us that there is something different, something that gives us life instead of draining us of life.
I'm so thankful for YL in HSE because we've been able to share this life-giving life with so many kids. In the past couple years I've seen dozens of HS and Junior High kids grow tremendously in their faith. It's not just something that they know about anymore, but something that impacts the way that they live their life every day. It's changing the way the see the world and the way they treat people around them. They're questioning where they find value and purpose. It's the coolest thing to witness.
Then it was time for the PAINT WAR!!! The field was scattered with 300 bags of paint. Everyone was raced to grab the bags and then fling paint on all of their friends. I tried to scoop up a handful of bags before I started attacking all of my Young Life kids around me.
There is something so incredibly fun and liberating about chucking paint at people and just being messy. I love it every single time. I love that kids lose their "I need to look a certain way" mentality and just go for it. Suddenly they're like little kids again and they can't stop smiling.
The park where we have the Paint War borders a neighborhood. We noticed that an elderly couple and rolled out their wheelchairs to the top of the hill to watch all of us running around. It might have been the most exciting thing they'd seen on Monday night in awhile.
Wyld Life had their Paint War on Saturday in the rain and still had a blast. We ended up having great weather tonight and the storms held off. This was an awesome first YL Club of the year.
There are few things I love more during the school year than hanging out with my Young Life friends. Nights like tonight are my favorite and I'm so glad that so many of my favorite kids were here.
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