IMPACT overview

Thank you all for prayed for impact this past weekend. It went so well, because of the Lord, through your prayers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We had around 150 kids, which is awesome. Mr. Naff's goal was for 150 but when we only had 46 signed up two days before the deadline, we were thinking that was a bit unreachable. But God is indeed good, and brought several more (some after the sign up deadline, but we weren't going to be picky), which helped us have a fantastic weekend.
I helped with registration which had me down at the Alpine at about 4:30, no nap for me that afternoon. We set up the tables and tried to get organized. We only had a few glitches, but by the end of the weekend, we weren’t even thinking of those. I was in charge of explaining the registration process to the groups, taking their forms, and selling T-shirts! Call me weird, but I love that kind of stuff—paperwork (on the receiving end, maybe it is more filing and organizing of the paperwork that I like)!

I met my three girls as they passed through registration. Two of the girls, Becca and Megan, were sisters, and the third girl, Cassie was a senior whose church sent the seniors to impact as a senior trip/senior gift. They were all very sweet, although I am concerned with exactly where they are standing spiritually. I know one of the girls was specifically convicted over the weekend, and was excited to go home and change her youth group. If you think of these three girls, please lift them up in your prayers, as we all know it gets tough to live out convictions once you get back home and get back to day-to-day life.
Dr. Anderson (president of ABC) was our speaker this year, and he truly did an fantastic job. The teens were very attentive and stayed awake (as much as I could see through my eyelids, just kidding, I was awake). The first night he talked about being awake (duh!) and asked three questions: Do you know what time it is?, Do you know what trouble is?, and Do you know what type you are? I know it is kind of hard to understand the whole message from just that, but I promise you it was very convicting. One of my girls responded to this message, and Praise God for that. Saturday morning Dr. A talked about the life of Sampson (Judges 16), and I confess I don’t think I have read/heard that story since I was young, but what a powerful story. Sampson got caught in sin, and that sin blinded him, binded him, and grinded him, but God’s grace found Him! I would have to say this was the most convicting for me personally. We had one last message on Saturday afternoon talking about three teenagers from the Bible as life examples: Daniel, Mary, and Timothy. I am so thankful for the messages Dr. A brought us reminding us to be awake as Christians.
The activities committee did an exceptional job with the activities. Friday night, Greg hosted a game of what most will know as “Minute to Win it” on TV He would give the teen a ‘task’ to do, and they had to do that in 60 seconds. He had one contestant rolling ping pong balls down a tape measure into a bowl about six feet from the teen; a contestant trying to take out all of the Kleenexes from a box, one at a time; he also had a contestant who had to blow like 20 disposable cups off of the table, but the air in a balloon that he repeatedly had to blow up. These are just a few of the activities, but it had us all laughing and very engaged. Saturday morning, we had a big game of Capture the Flag…Mattress Style! The twist to it being mattress style is that the flag was a full size mattress. Without going into all of the rules, we all had a blast playing this game, and I actually did tag some people, and didn’t fall into the pond (though a few guys tried to make it so there was no else but the pond to go). Sadly, the guys pretty much won, but oh well, it was fun playing!

Another activity we did was on Friday night around our indoor ‘bonfire’. Eric, in his creativity, asked for four volunteers: two guys, and two girls. He had one girl and one guy lay on the floor where there was plastic laid out. He then gave each team (guys’ team and girls’ team) a bowl of peanut butter and told them they had like 20 seconds to smear as much of the peanut butter on the person laying down(‘s) face. No worries, he made sure his volunteers were not allergic to peanut butter. He then gave each team a bowl of cheerios, and this time, they had to get as many cheerios on this person’s face. It was very noisy as the teams each cheered for their team/gender. By this time, it was very messy down there, so Eric decided to be nice to the girl and guy laying down, and help them with the cleaning process, so he had the team member standing up take off their socks and shoes and clean off the other’s person’s face…with their feet! I was thankful I was not down there, but it was a blast to watch as the contestants were all good sports about it and had a blast doing it.The weekend left me exhausted with a long week ahead of me, but God is good and is helping me get my work done. Now only one full day left of classes- yay! If you think of them, please pray for the teens that were here this past week. We know of one girl who accepted Christ, and we praise God for that salvation. We also know of several who responded to rededicating their life. They need our prayers that they hold strong to the commitments they made this weekend. To God be all the glory!