So last wednesday, well technically thursday morning, we returned from Adventure Camp. It was amazing. 5 days of running around, doing activities like rock climbing, caving, biking, go karting, lazer tag, high ropes courses, and crawling around through tunnels, and spending time w/ some really cool middle schoolers and taking the opportunity to share w/ them Jesus love is my idea of a great time. Exhausting, but definitely worth it. My favorite events we did were rock climbing and the high ropes course. Seeing students scared out of their mind, but pushing through fears and conquering them is such a cool thing to be a part of. Talking them through rock climbing, letting them know what is coming up and good foot and hand holds, encouraging them, hearing them repeat "I can't do it" dozens of times and then watching them do it, is so much fun.
During the day we would do 2 of these activities, then at night we would have club. We had a band from England come and lead us in music and a speaker who is a professor from Purdue. We talked a little trash about that, as I was wearing a michigan state sweatshirt the first day. She walked the students through the gospel, and then afterwards we had small group time and were able to delve deeper with the students. We had some really good conversations in our teepee (we stayed in teepees, it was fun, but the beds were not near long enough, it stopped at my shin).
One major highlight from the week was playing the "big brother" card. As often happens when you get a couple hundred teens together, there was some flirting and interest from members of the opposite gender in each other. I was keeping a close eye on things and decided to have some fun with it. i let the young gentlemen callers know that i was very protective of the girls from grafenwoehr, and that I was way bigger than they were and that I see everything. I would go and sit in between students if I thought they were sitting too close. For the most part, my girls really appreciated it. I even received requests to scare off guys they thought were getting too friendly. It was fun to keep sharp on my intimidate guys skills, since I am not near my sisters anymore and have to do my intimidation from a distance (although sometimes this is even more effective).
Tomorrow I am headed down to Italy. We have a staff conference and training for the next week and a half. I am really looking forward to it. It is a great opportunity to learn more, and also to spend time w/ my peers, whom I have become very good friends with. I will be getting back on the 7th of May. I will let you know how it went upon my return.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Italy, movies and Belgium
Gross Gott. Hope you are all doing well. Italy was awesome two weekends ago. It was really nice to do some relaxing and sight seeing. I went w/ some fellow Club Beyond staffers :Storey from Hohenfels in Germany, Elizabeth from Menwith Hill in England and Laura from Vicenza in Italy. Storey and I drove down on Thursday to Vicenza, where there is an Army base and Club Beyond is there, and met up w/ Laura and Elizabeth who flew in that day. We spent Friday seeing the sights in the area, going to a castle, and just relaxing. On Saturday we went to Venice for the day. Venice is a beautiful city, very different from most place w/ all the canals. I really enjoyed it. Pictures are up on facebook. Then Sunday we slept in, hung out for a bit, and then made the drive back up to Germany. Gotta love living in Europe where you can take a weekend trip to other countries.
Life here in Graf is going well. The main new thing to post about is small groups. We have started two new small groups for the high schoolers. One i am doing w/ our freshman guys. We are meeting on Sunday evening and will be going through the book The Invisible War. It is on spiritual warfare. The guys really wanted to study Revelations, but I feel this is more pertinent to their every day lives. Our other small group is a movie ministry. We will be getting together to watch a movie, not religious movies but watching them through a religious perspective. This last friday we watched the film 127 Hours. We discussed how the story mirrors peoples spiritual lives, how things might have been different had he relied on others for help, and made some good observations about Jesus offering us living water. If you haven't seen the movie, none of that probably makes any sense to you, so I recommend you watch it. Be warned, it is very graphic at parts. One of our students, Jobee, is leading the group. It was her idea, Aretta and I will be there to offer help w/ planning/organizing, and to throw in my two cents in discussion times, but she leads it. This is something that is really cool to see, a student be passionate enough about her faith to get a group like this going. She is the type of student you love to have a few of at Club, someone who actively recruits others to attend and is willing to share her faith, and also to question things about it. Sadly she will be heading out of here this summer, but such is military life.
Now to look ahead. Next Saturday we are heading out w/ 24 middle schoolers from here and going to Belgium for a week. Well, 5 days. It is spring break and we are headed to adventure camp, along w/ the other military communities in Europe. We will be doing activities such as mihntain biking, rock climbing, water rafting, laser tagging, and more. At night we will have club and a speaker and then go into small groups. Please pray that the Spirit moves during the week, and that lives are changed. This is thetype of week that has the opportunity to make a lasting impact on these teens lives, so prayers are needed. With the chance to do so much good in the spiritual lives of these teens, that also means an increased risk of spiritual warfare, which I must admit we are seeing here and in other communities. Thankfully, we serve a God greater and more amazing than anything in the world. I will send out an update probably right before we head out, and then for sure after we get back and let you know how God worked during the week.
God bless.
Life here in Graf is going well. The main new thing to post about is small groups. We have started two new small groups for the high schoolers. One i am doing w/ our freshman guys. We are meeting on Sunday evening and will be going through the book The Invisible War. It is on spiritual warfare. The guys really wanted to study Revelations, but I feel this is more pertinent to their every day lives. Our other small group is a movie ministry. We will be getting together to watch a movie, not religious movies but watching them through a religious perspective. This last friday we watched the film 127 Hours. We discussed how the story mirrors peoples spiritual lives, how things might have been different had he relied on others for help, and made some good observations about Jesus offering us living water. If you haven't seen the movie, none of that probably makes any sense to you, so I recommend you watch it. Be warned, it is very graphic at parts. One of our students, Jobee, is leading the group. It was her idea, Aretta and I will be there to offer help w/ planning/organizing, and to throw in my two cents in discussion times, but she leads it. This is something that is really cool to see, a student be passionate enough about her faith to get a group like this going. She is the type of student you love to have a few of at Club, someone who actively recruits others to attend and is willing to share her faith, and also to question things about it. Sadly she will be heading out of here this summer, but such is military life.
Now to look ahead. Next Saturday we are heading out w/ 24 middle schoolers from here and going to Belgium for a week. Well, 5 days. It is spring break and we are headed to adventure camp, along w/ the other military communities in Europe. We will be doing activities such as mihntain biking, rock climbing, water rafting, laser tagging, and more. At night we will have club and a speaker and then go into small groups. Please pray that the Spirit moves during the week, and that lives are changed. This is thetype of week that has the opportunity to make a lasting impact on these teens lives, so prayers are needed. With the chance to do so much good in the spiritual lives of these teens, that also means an increased risk of spiritual warfare, which I must admit we are seeing here and in other communities. Thankfully, we serve a God greater and more amazing than anything in the world. I will send out an update probably right before we head out, and then for sure after we get back and let you know how God worked during the week.
God bless.
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