Monday, December 8, 2014

Love Tanks at Young Life

Do you know that feeling when your heart is so full that you can actually feel it? I love that feeling. At our Minute To Win It Club we gave the winners old trophies from the Bowman's attic. Hannah won a gymnastics trophy that she tried to pass off to me but I said she had to take it home and she could give it to me later. Well tonight she showed up with that trophy and she had the Senior girls all sign the bottom of it for me. I LOVE it. It will know be proudly displayed on a shelf in my apartment. I really, really don't want these girls to graduate in a semester.


At the beginning of Campaigner's tonight Ryan announced our Summer Camp plans for our fourth summer of trips. Now that we have so many kids that have gone with us to YL camp twice, we're offering WILDERNESS! It's a week long trip to go back packing in the mountains of Colorado. You're on the trail with your group for five whole days and from all the stories I've heard it sounds like just the coolest thing ever. I really, really wish I could go. It's been my dream since the beginning. I'm so excited we have kids that will get to experience this.

Then our first and second timers to YL camp will be going to CASTAWAY! Yes, our Wyld Life and Young Life groups will both be traveling to Castaway in Minnesota this summer. I've been there once several years ago and I'm so excited to go back with these kids. 


Tonight we spent some more time in individual prayer before starting to write Love Tanks. This has become an HSE tradition that we do at the end of each semester. The idea is that we each have a Love Tank inside of us that is filled by others and that we can fill up the Love Tanks of other people. We write notes of love, encouragement, prayer, memories and hopes.


Now that we've done this several different semesters, kids have an expectation and excitement for this night. We had over 100 High School kids show up and tape their Love Tank to the gym wall. Kids who have done this before know that they can never write fast enough so they came prepared with some of their notes already written. That shows that they think this is valuable and they think that encouraging as many people as possible is worthy of their time.


It is a joy to be able to write notes to the Young Life kids and leader that mean so much to me. I love having the opportunity to tell girls like Genna and Annie, leaders like KCraig and Jackie or Wyld Life leaders like Chad and BGrad the things that I see in them and my prayers for their life. This is a time when we get to echo truths about who they are that God has been telling them all along.


Being a Young Life leader in HSE is one of the greatest joys in my life. Besides being a counselor at Tecumseh, nothing else even comes close. I can't tell you how much the words that were written to me in my love tank mean to me. These kids each have such a big part of my heart. When I was in HS I never would have dreamed that I would be part of a community like this. I'm so glad that God is all about surprising us.


As soon as I got home I started getting texts from so many Young Life kids. They were signing up for Wilderness and Castaway, saying thank you for love tank notes and texting kind words that they didn't have time to write down. This community is so full with love and energy and fun and excitement that it's actually bursting at the seems. I'm so lucky to be part of it all. I love these people.


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