e diel, 18 shkurt 2007

Winterfest!

Wow...what a weekend! The whole family just returned from an action packed weekend at Winterfest in Gatlinburg. We had an awesome time hanging out with the guys and gals from the Mayfair Youth Group. It's such a blessing to spend time with these young men and women and see the level of spiritual maturity they display. I'm always so impressed at how many of them have such a genuine, pure desire to enhance their personal relationship with Christ.

This weekend the theme for Winterfest was "The Prize". The theme was taken directly from Paul's letter to the church at Philipi, in which he urges his brothers and sisters to "press on toward the goal for THE PRIZE" which is found in Christ Jesus. There were so many great lessons from the weekend, and a lot of good discussion from the kids in the group as well. My favorite part of the sessions, however, was hearing 6,000 people praise God through song...it was powerful. I know that I was blessed immensely by being there, and my prayer is that the kids grew closer to each other, and more importantly, to Christ, over the weekend.

Some highlights and pictures from the weekend:

* Camden throwing up Friday night...not what we wanted on the first night there, but that's what we get for too much pizza and popcorn. He recovered for the remainder of the weekend, although I spent some of Saturday with Carter & Caley by myself. Thanks to Chris & Stacy, Joy, and all of the teens for helping me out that morning.

* The Snow...it was gorgeous. It snowed most of the day on Saturday, and other than us all freezing to death, I think it really helped the weekend out.

* Seeing my kids play in the snow. No, not just my real kids, but our high schoolers sledding down a nearly vertical hillside on a garbage can lid (Grant & May) and having an all out war of a snowball fight.

* The "Gallon Challenge". Four of the guys (Chris, Jared, Ross, and Michael) decided to try and separately down a gallon of chocolate milk in an hour. Needless to say, no one finished it off, but Chris came the closest for the win. The hour ended with the biggest barrage of brown puke I've ever seen. Did we really stay up until 3am to watch this? Yes, we've got it all on film.

* Hanging out with the Andersons and Cagles, our Huddle Leader cohorts. It's been a great blessing to spend time with their families this year.

* Watching the way my kids latch on and love the teenagers. If any of the teens happen to read this, little eyes and ears and watching and listening. By the way, I think my boys have a thing teenage girls.

* Seeing some of the teens be pricked by what they heard, and making a commitment to make a change in their hearts. No one in the group was baptized this weekend, but I trust that many seeds were planted and that the rest of us were re-energized and re-focused.

In summary, an incredible weekend. We pray for changed lives and renewed spirits. God, thank you for giving us just what we need just when we need it.






3 komente:

Anonim tha...

I can't believe I didn't get to see y'all in Gatlinburg at all. I guess we just had totally different schedules, going to different sessions. I'm going to try and get a blog up about it tonight. You'll have to read- there was a point where I got really, really scared. Glad you had fun!

laura tha...

Thomas, my girls love you and your sweet family. They came back talking about how great it was that you guys were with them. My girls grew up in the Youth group and have great memories. Thank you for sacrificing your weekend it was greatly appreciated.

Jamey tha...

Looks like a fun time was had by all!