In many ways I really feel as though I was able to grow in friendship with the kids in my youth group this winter and we had a great time doing it!
- Before Christmas we had a large Christmas party with dinner and a white elephant gift exchange! It was fun seeing traditions I had seen begin at the youth group I grew up in transfer into the Mid-West. Watching the kids prepare the table, make decorations, ready the food, and serve one another was a treat and an encouraging holiday sight. We had a terrific time!
- I had a great evening celebrating New Year's Eve at my church with a board game night that whole families came to! There was probably 30 of us there playing different games. It was my first New Year's Eve not in the Eastern Time Zone. Someone just counted off the seconds to midnight off a wristwatch and we all cheered in the basement of the church. A simple and fun evening!
- Also, some of us went ice skating at an outdoor rink in the big park in downtown St. Louis - it was such a neat place to be!
- We have been studying what the Bible says about prayer and coming to grips with what it means to call God our Father (it means that He has adopted us into his family!). The future holds for the fellowship a renewed effort on my part to enter into their worlds instead of calling them out of their worlds to interact with me in mine. The easy temptation for anyone working with adolescents is to make them play by your rules, on your turf, in your game. I hope to continue to earn their trust by not waiting for them to come to me, but for me to go to them. Also, we will begin a more intentional time of discipleship, really asking the question, "what will it look like for me to serve my friends?" and training the students to be involved in each others lives in a helpful and gospel centered way.