All nighters and Ice Cream

Last night, with my youth group, we had an all night event. We left after school (aka after my personal day) and drove to Maine. There we saw a minor league hockey game, heard a speaker, I got to pray with some girls in the youth group who came to Christ, then we drove some more, went roller skating, drove even more and then had an open gym where my team dominated in soccer! Finally we got home at 8:30 this morning, resulting in me taking a 5 hour "morning hibernation." Here is a picture of the shirt logo for the night: "Play Drive Sleep Repeat."

What stood out to me though on the trip was that people naturally yearn for a relationship with Jesus Christ, our savior. The two girls who I got to pray with had always known about God, but never knew God's grace and forgiveness. The smiles on their faces and the support of the staff at Word of Life proved that God is at work. Jesus died not just because the religious leaders of the day hated him, but because we deserved death for our sins and Jesus said (paraphrased by me) "I will take the punishment for them so that they can have this gift of life and grace. THAT is how much I love them." God loves unconditionally. This was the message the kids took with them.

Also, in our car, which was me and 4 junior high girls, the songs that got the biggest reactions from the girls were the worship songs we played. We played White Flag and Our God about 20 times each. It was great to see them excited about worship music. The songs that were chosen had the theme of nothing being able to separate us from God, which I thought was interesting. Going back to the speaker: the message was about Jesus's mercy, which ties in nicely to this idea of nothing being able to separate us. Jesus closes the gaps we create between God and ourselves (aka sin) by his mercy, making it impossible for sin to separate us from the love of God.


The second part of this blog is about ice cream! Today there was a fundraiser for the 5th graders at this really good ice cream place in downtown Danvers. My students got to work behind the counter at the cash register and by scooping ice cream. It was so cute to see them behind the counter working in their matching Great Oak School shirts. They were excited to see me and I was excited to see them. :-) I love my students. I also got to meet my twins' mom who responded to me introducing myself as, "You're their teachers? I didn't expect you to be so…young!" Welcome to my life as a 22 year old teacher. (Also, I looked like a bum when I met this parent in my T-shirt, jeans, and my "tired from lack of sleep" face…cool)