The Hunt

So I was going to title this post "insanity at its finest" but I decided to air on the side of being informative instead of witty. As you read on I think you may agree with my original idea. You know the saying, "the more the merrier"? Well, that was my feeling as we geared up for our usual youth conference that takes place every three months during the school holidays. I did my usual promo getting the word out to the missionary community and what not, really thinking that it would be like usual where we would have at the most 120 students...hahaha... WRONG! Little by little more and more people informed me that their students would come, I couldn't believe the response, it seriously blew my mind. My friends would just laugh as the final days brought in bigger and bigger numbers of people registering, and when it was all said in done we had around 250... that's right 250 students between the ages of 10-20 on our compound this past Friday and Saturday.

What adds to the fun and excitement of that number is the fact that I was out of town doing village outreaches for the week and a half before the conference. Now, I'm known for my OCD organizational skills when it comes to events. I have color coded schedules, countless to-do lists, a binder (usually with tabs), and the list goes on. This time, I couldn't do that and not being able to be my neurotic self before the largest youth event we've ever had almost killed me. But on Friday morning (after 2 hours of sleep) ready or not, it was go time. The conference had the theme of "The Hunt" which was a study through Proverbs and our search for wisdom and all that entails. We looked at the people (sluggard, righteous, hard worker, etc...), our plans vs. God's plans, our anger, temptation, and our words. We had to have the teachers stand at the back of the church so that the kids sitting under the tent could see the teacher as well as the kids in the church. It was an interesting dynamic but it worked.

We also had several wild and crazy games that each had a point to them to teach about what we were learning in Proverbs. We had capture the flag and a treasure hunt (dealing with searching for wisdom). We had a crazy huge slip n' slide to show that we need to focus on God and go straight for His path if we want to go the furthest in living the life He made us to live.

The next day afte the teaching on temptation, the kids had to eat cupcakes where some of them had some interesting items inside (cat food, jalepeno vienna sausages, olives) to show that things may look good on the outside but the inside only brings bad news.

We also had a killer water ballon fight to teach how our words can hurt us, get us "wet", and also affect others.

And another crazy game involving a crab walk to a basin full of corn starch to then take suckers out with their toes then go to a plate of honey, soda, and the stuff from the cupcakes and get a mouth full of that and then run and spit it into a coke bottle (all teaching about our words).

By now I'm guessing you're understanding the "insanity" comment from the beginning. And honestly, it was pretty crazy, and I learned a whole, whole lot about what I need to do come August when we host our next conference. But I just have to take this time to give a shout out to all the people who helped out with this event: the small group leaders, Jess, Bev, the School of Ministry guys, Ricky, and Davis (whose service was more of a blessing than he'll ever probably know). Overall, I'm getting feedback that it was a "success" and I'm just blown away that God allowed me to play a small part in getting these students to know Him more. TO HIM BE ALL THE HONOR, ALL THE GLORY, AND ALL THE PRAISE.