"Oh, I think you might know my son. Do you know Ryan Ahlwardt?"

Christmas came early today in the form of 173 bright pink sweatshirts. Office Aids wheeled four gigantic boxes to my room this afternoon and I was beyond excited about it. Then the great sorting of 2014 began after school. 

I snagged my FBC elves Sophie, Elyse, Gracie, Maddie, Maggie, Hannah, Maddy, Audrey and Elise to help. They rolled and rubberbanded all of the shirts and sorted them by size.

We packed up the ones that will be handed out during lunches at HSJH tomorrow. Then the other 100 all got labeled and 25 of them got stuffed into envelopes to be shipped to friends that live far away. A box of them will go to Bloomington next week and a huge pile will be passed out at the CILT Reunion next weekend. FBC friends span the country.

Maddie, Maddy, Maggie and Elyse came with me to the post office so we could get the 25 packaged ones mailed right away. Little did we know that while we were talking about Wyld Life camp the woman in front of us in line was listening in. She turned around and asked, "Do you know my son Ryan Ahlwardt?" We all couldn't believe the coincidence and sent Ryan a selfie right away.

Tonight Wyld Life leaders and kids gathered at Mama Bear's for our last Campaigners of the semester. I'm so thankful that KCraig went out on a limb and decided to try having Campaigners for these kids. They've latched on and totally loved this part of YL.

Tonight we started with 10 minutes of prayer time when they could pray silently or write a letter to God. Blaire led us in singing Thrive by Casting Crowns and I was so impressed by how quickly everyone caught on. Then I got to be part of a conversation with Maggie, Elise, Natalie, Maddie Zirkle, Jess and Natalie Mills about thriving as we dig in deep and reach out. These talks matter. These kids matter. I love that we get to make both things a priority.