3 STUDENTS, 3 ROBES, 3 TESTIMONIES.... 1 GOD!!!!

So one of the most amazing and awesome things that I get to see and experience in youth ministry, is watching as students come out from under their parents faith and make Jesus and their faith their own!!! I LOVE watching students grow deeper and deeper in love with Christ and what all He has to offer them. I'm so amazed at how some of these students are just so on fire for God!!! It brings such joy and excitement into what God has me doing here on earth. Today at First Covenant Church was Baptism Sunday!! I had 3 students want to get baptized, one in obedience to God and two, as a way to publicly tell everyone that they have received Christ into their heart and life.  What an exciting day it was. All week we have been planning for this day. The students met with me on Wed to talk about what Baptism means and why we get baptized. Then the students had to write a testimony of their faith (which was going to be read while they were walking into the water). I loved reading the testimonies of these 3 great students as we prepared for Sunday!!!
The students from Left to Right:
Kodee Christensen, Sydney Omli, and Tyler Blochlinger

                         They were so excited and yet very nervous at the same time..

ok so while we were waiting to go line up the students were telling me how nervous they were. So I tried to calm them down by saying " You're nervous?? I'm nervous, I have to read your testimony in front of 500 people!!!! (which they laughed) Mission Accomplished !!! :)
So after discussing who was more nervous.. Tyler said "man these robes are heavy at the bottom" and I said "that's because they have weights in them at the bottom so that way when you walk in the water your robe doesn't poof and balloon up in your face.

 They thought that was the coolest thing ever and were amazed. So I figured we needed to take a picture and capture the moment !!! :) 


And at the end of the day .... 3 testimonies were read (without mess ups :) ) and 3 students were baptized and declared their love and faith for their Lord!!! It's a GREAT day and I know that in heaven they are having a PARTY to celebrate with us!! :)

I LOVE BEING A YOUTH PASTOR!!! :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR..... I MADE IT THROUGH THE LOCK-IN !!!

Good morning to me/Good afternoon to everyone else! Well we made it!! Lock - In  2012-2013 was a success!!! We had such a blast at the church all through the night, and to be honest, it seemed to go by pretty quick also. :) The students LOVED it which made all the planning and everything totally worth it. The only thing I regret was not taking pic's throughout the evening:(  Being the person in charge keeps you a lot more busy than normal haha. However, I did get some pictures of our Pre-Trip SAMS visit. Oh my goodness we had TONS of food.
Here is the view that I woke up to the morning of the Lock-In. I absolutely LOVE waking up to snow on the ground!! One of the best feelings in the world!! Now time to get ready to go shopping!!!

Ben (my husband) on our way to SAMS to get all the goodies!!! We had to make a few pit stops to do some drifting in the snow. I got some footage of us drifting but It wouldn't upload :( 

With over 100+ students we knew that they were going to need some food throughout the night, so my husband (who is completely amazing for staying by my side and helping me through all of this) and I went and got fruit, chips, soda, candy, fruit snacks, cookies, and then breakfast food such as banana nut bread, variety pack of pre-cut breads, pastries, donuts, and fruit. Not including the 58 pizza's from Papa Johns that we had at 10:00pm for dinner. 

 It was a long morning... here is the view of us with just our 1st trip through the check out line....

 These 2 carts doesn't include all the breakfast food that we still had to buy, so Ben and I decided to buy this and load it up in the Xterra first, and if we had room, then we would come back in and get the rest of the food. Thankfully it all fit in the Xterra, so we went back inside for more :) Here is a pic of ALL the food that we got, (not including the 2 Liter bottles of soda we still had to get)

I was very glad that I had my snow boots to wear.. they kept my feet nice and warm :) 

Here is our Lock-In Schedule... it worked out great for our group. And most importantly we had a salvation message!! That was what our focal point was for the evening. We wanted this to be an outreach event that students were able to come together and celebrate the New Year, but also to take a look on their own lives, whether it was 2012 or looking forward to 2013 and seeing what you are going to do with this life that you have? And are you going to live it for Christ? Norm Jennings did such a great job of delivering the message that God wanted us to hear through Him. 

Our Main Event (High school) Praise Band did such a great job leading us all into worship and into the presence of the Jesus!!! Great job you guy's, and than you!! 

Norm Jennings giving us God's word! Such a powerful message! 

The Sr High was a little out numbered last night, so they chilled in one of the rooms for a bit and played spoons, and listened to music. They are a great group of students!!

 I am so so so blessed to be serving My Lord and Savior as well as these students. I absolutely LOVE being a youth pastor and wouldn't have it any other way! It was so fun to be able to hang out with students and to help them make some memories that hopefully they will keep forever. Thanks to everyone who helped with the Lock-In, all the adults who took the time to come up and either help for a few hrs or stay all night! Couldn't have done it without ya. 

Now after a few hrs of sleep, I'm drinking a cup of hot coffee, and blogging about my amazing experience that I had last night with some amazing people. 

I hope everyone has a great and happy New Years Day!!! May God bless you all as we enter into the year of 2013... I'm so excited to see what He will be doing through His people!!!! 

T minus 10 Hrs.. and counting...

As many of you know, who know me or read my blog section "the FUN life of youth ministry." know that I'm a youth pastor. I absolutely love my job. I love Jr High and Sr High kids! They are so much fun to hang around (and i'm sure the fact that I act like both groups at times helps ;)
With the Sunday and Wednesday programs also comes the fun extra activities, and what would a New Years be without a LOCK-IN.. yes i said it, Lock-In..where you stick me in a church with 200+ students and say "good luck see ya in the AM" haha.
Monday evening starting at 9pm the doors of the church will lock and my body will start to panic trying to go into sleep mode around 10pm ;) Have I said yet that I love my job?? ;) For some reason, the older I get the more I just can't stay up all night. As I'm writing this blog, it's about 11pm and my eyes are struggling to stay awake. haha. When I do lock-in's I'm usually grumpy by morning, sleep deprived, and I look like death that just came up out of the grave. (great visual I know) :)
HOWEVER, with all that being said, IT'S NOT ABOUT ME :) it's about the students! And if they will have a blast and hear a message about the amazing gift of grace and forgiveness through a Lock-In, then bring on the Lock-In's. If there is only one person tomorrow night who hears the message of Salvation and comes to a relationship with Christ, then the whole night and sleep deprivation is totally worth it. :) I will be taking pictures throughout the evening and then on Jan 2nd or 3rd I will post the damage :)
Here is the start of the Lock-In Prep......

First off, we had to drive to Wichita to get some inflatables. (A fun road trip for the husband and I, AND we got a dinner with my family out of the deal.)

 A big Thanks to "Big Sky Party Rentals" for being so awesome. If you ever need inflatables for some event, they are the people to go through, they are wonderful and are so helpful. We rented a "obstacle  course" called the "Adrenalin rush" (i'll be needing that at 2AM) and we rented a "bungie run".

We had a great view of the Kansas sunset as we were driving. 

The music for the evening....

Our students are such a talented group of students. Main Event Praise Band will be leading us in worship a few times during the lock-in, and so today was practice day! They sound amazing!!! I'm so proud of each one of them. 

And here is the obstacle course AKA: Adrenalin Rush. I'm excited to try this one out !!! 

So that is our Pre-Lock-In prep. Monday morning and afternoon I am heading to Wal-Mart and SAMS for lots of fruit (to compensate for the loads of sugar that students will be intaking), granola bars, chips, soda, gatorade, and muffins, and more fruit for breakfast the next morning. It's going to be a long day, and I will make sure to take pictures of my adventure as I gather it all. Then at 8pm it's a meeting with my amazing leaders who signed up to either help all night or just for a few hrs. (either way they all are AWESOME!!) and then at 9pm It's LOCK-DOWN.. I mean, Lock-In :) haha

:) I do love youth events, and doing what I love,  we are going to have such a BLAST!!