It has been a while since the last update!! Not much has changed, still busy as ever and learning more than I ever dreamed of! I feel like when Christmas break rolls around I'm just going to need to take some time to soak everything in and process it all! I'm excited to do so too!
This week has been awesome for our ministry. We got asked to help out with an assembly at one of the high schools we go to. The assembly is called Point Break, and it is a program that travels around to different high schools. Basically their goal is to unite the student body and to give them the opportunity to build more of a safe environment at school. It was so awesome. It was Wednesday and Thursday and each day there were about 80 students that the teachers selected to participate. It was an awesome day of hanging out, playing games, but also really challenging the students and getting to a deeper level. One of the activities was called "Cross the Line". And they had a line of tape on the floor and everyone was on one side and then the guys in charge would read something like "cross the line if you've ever been made fun of for your color or culture." Something like that, and everyone who had experienced that, would cross the line in front of everyone. As the game went on, the scenarios went deeper and deeper. It was a surreal experience watching so many kids cross that line about scenarios that kids that young should never experience. It brought many emotions up and several students were crying and just really remembering awful times in their lives. This then opened students up and encouraged them to open up in our small groups. It really was a life changing experience for me. Getting this opportunity in public schools is something youth pastors pray for. Being on campuses is my favorite part of our week, and to get the opportunity to be there for an entire day directly connecting with students on a deeper level was just out of this world awesome. I got to help a couple kids really process some things from their past and just love on them. So awesome.
Next week, for our youth service which happens to fall on Halloween, we are doing a huge event to try to attract kids to come hang out. We're bringing out a thing called Donnie Moore and the Power Team. I guess the guy is like a huge macho body builder and breaks bricks with his head or something weird like that. Not really my thing, but if kids think its cool then sweet. Were going to have a ton of other things too. We've really been dreaming for this event and were stoked to see what happens. We're expecting 1,500 kids that night hopefully. So this week we've got a ton of work to do to get those kids there. We're holding assemblies at 5 high schools in the span of two days. Those will be quite the days. But i am so excited for it. It's a huge opportunity to get our name out there and to get to know kids! The assemblies will be us bringing out the body builder guy. I guess he and his team have a crazy testimony which he shares at the end of his performance. And I've heard it's super powerful. So I'm pretty stoked to see what happens from it! Then after the Halloween event, we've got a ton of work to do with following up with the students that came out and make sure to get them connected and meet with them and things like that. So, I am ready to learn about how to do all of this for my youth group one day! Such awesome opportunities out here. I love it.
I haven't had much opportunity to get out of Modesto yet just because of our crazy schedule. However, last weekend a friend and I went to a place called Knight's Ferry. It's sort of like a nature park thing. I don't know what they're called, but it's a pretty famous thing around here. It was a small town built in the late 1800's I think. And there's fragments of the original buildings like the first mill and things like that. It was pretty cool! We just hiked around and looked at everything! Here's some pictures from that:
The drive there: (Just driving while seeing mountains...normal now!!)
Some from the park!
And then we stopped in the little town on the way back and obviously had to have some handmade ice cream!!!
I might be going to San Francisco tomorrow! A bunch of my friends have fixie bikes, and they take a huge group and bike around the city! I dont have a bike yet, so me and some other bikeless people might go! But it will still be great! For my friend's birthday in a couple weeks we are going to head up to Monterey and go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium!!!! I am so stoked for that! And for Thanksgiving, I'm going to go down to San Diego to stay with a family that I stayed with with Marlo over spring break last year! And on the way back from that, we are going to stop in Los Angeles and see some friends and possibly (hopefully) get into Disney Land for free because one of our friends works there! I am so excited!
I hope all of you are well!
Love you all!
