Wildhorse

What a great week! Wildhorse Canyon is a beautiful place and it was awesome to be there. Young life did a great program! The week affected our kids a lot. We had 2 accept Christ and 3 more recommit. The biggest highlight would be the closeness of our group. The group that went are really close. There was very little drama, and everyone seemed to get along and have a blast. It was a great opportunity for me to hang out with all the students for a week at camp, I just wish it would've been at the beginning of the summer instead of near the end! Some other highlights included:

The Ropes Course (yes something that involves balancing on wires 40 feet in the air is a highlight) What an awesome feeling when I got through it, even though it was very slow, and I fell once, but I did it, and so did everyone else in our group

Car Ride: I drove the suburban and had 3 different passengers there and back. It was a great chance for some good one on one times.

Skit Night: Yes the leaders put on an entertainment night. Yes, I was the one chosen from our Stayton Group. Yes, I was picked to do Riverdance. Let's just say it was a combination of me doing an irish can can and jogging really fast, it was awesome.

I'm banged up like always, I mean what would a trip be without hurting my knees, although no sprained ankles! I did get a new one though, hurt my tailbone on the first night. Makes it hard to sit on the floor. But minor stuff, What a great week!

Update

My dad's doing much better. They are doing an ekg on Tuesday as a precaution but they diagnosed him with a thing where the heart rate fluctuates for no apparent reason. The doctors have told him that there's nothing to worry about and they can treat it with medication, so that's an awesome Praise!

IT was awesome seeing BPPC's bus caravan group last night. Had a ton of fun at a bbq and applebee's. I'm off to Wildhorse tomorrow morning. We have our final numbers of 4 leader's and 12 students. Please be praying for our team. Leaders: Wescott, Brad, Scott, Tanya Students: Andy, Alisha, Nathan, Alexis, Alana, Lee, Chris, Shayla, Tiffany, Amanda, Ashley and Becky.

I'll update when I get back next Friday

Brad

Prayer

Hey all, my family could use some prayer right now. My dad had an episode this morning where he could not get his heart rate down to normal. They ran some tests and gave him some medication, and he has to go back to the doctor. My family's pretty shook up, so please pray.

Also my grandma's alzheimer's is getting worse. She knew my mom's name last night but didn't know that she was her daughter among other things. It's really hard on my mom and her siblings to see this happen, please pray for that too

Brad

Young Life

Hey all, just thought I'd update while I had a chance before the next couple days get busy. Tonight I get to see the Boulevard Bus Caravan group which I'm really excited about! It'll be a great chance to hang out and have them see some of the group down here too (provided they show up). Tomorrow will be spent doing laundry and packing as I take off for Wildhorse Canyon Sat. Morning, pray for a great trip and a lot of lives changed. Half of our group is non-christians. Look forward to seeing everyone and I'll update when I get back.

Brad

Others First

I think I've recovered from our jr. high Seattle trip. We had a great retreat with 16 students and 7 leaders. Our theme was others first, and we saw some immediate results of the students thinking through those things and beginning to put them into practice!

As the person in charge I think things went well from the administrative standpoint. There were a few little things that could've gone better, but that comes with experience. I'm extemely pleased, and hope that the changes that students have made will continue!

The busyness doesn't stop, as we have a bbq tonight, another one on Thursday before taking off to Wildhorse with our high school group!

Prayer Requests
Pray that the things that were talked about on our Seattle Trip will stick
Pray for my getting my resume out. Hopefully that will be done today and can start getting people tomorrow
Pray also for our Wildhorse trip on Saturday

It was awesome being back at Boulevard and seeing everyone. I also look forward to seeing the Bus Caravan team on Thursday!

Brad

Out of Nowhere

The Jr. High stuff today went really really well! We had a record 18 in Sunday school. It was awesome to see everyone there and they were actually into it. We did a couple Worship songs which is new for jr. high and they didn't mess around. We got into some great discussions. It's cool seeing Sunday school go well and the excitement level get up there.

Tonight we had a jr. high movie night, which went really well. Outside of the fact I melted the ice cream and burned the pizza! We had another recored 25 jr. highers tonight. Complete with about 6-7 we had never seen before. We watched Finding Nemo, then played frisbee till parents got there. One of the kids that came was deaf, and although I couldn't really communicate all that well, his brother translated and we exchanged emails, so hopefully we'll be able to communicate that way.

Keep praying for our Seattle Trip we have 15 kids signed up which is awesome! We have 3 more spots left, so it would be awesome to fill those. Also keep praying that those who do go will be impacted by God in some way on this trip! I'm excited to come up in 4 days and stay at Boulevard. I'm excited to see what God has in store for the jr. highers!

Brad

Pumped Up

Today I got some real encouraging news. Wescott ran into a jr. high parent, and they talked about how her daughter has loved everything that we've done this summer, and how she has a list of like 12 friends to invite. She's also read Philippians on her own and has started a prayer journal! It's awesome to hear the ways God is working!

Brad

Good Times

Today was a lot of fun. My outing with the high schooler went really well. We pretty much hung out all day! I'm really pleased with how everything went, and we're going to do it again soon. It was also nice that we were able to talk about church and reaching our non-Christian friends. It went really well.

The last couple days have been pretty busy but really good. I'm definately into the flow of where I'm not going to want to leave in the end of August. Yesterday was a jr. high bbq and parade watching. We had a small turnout but ended up being fun anyway. things start to get busier the next few weeks. The Seattle Trip planning is starting to come together, and I have a lot of ideas of cool things to do on the trip, so I'm getting excited about that.

A prayer request would be for our high school sunday school overnighter this weekend. Pray that the students that come will develop a desire to be a part of the group, and to reach out to their friends. They're mostly Christian kids that like their bubble. Pray for a heart that wants to reach out! Thanks for all the comments!

Brad

Timing is everything

God works in awesome ways. After staying up half the night reflecting and putting my trust in God, he worked! On Tuesday I'm hanging out with a high schooler (first high schooler I've done anything with outside of church). We're going to lunch and shopping for his dad's birthday present. Praise God, that things are working, and it's all in his timing!

Reflections from the Night Owl

It's 1:40 am. I need to be up in about 6 hours, yet I'm updating! This is not going to be a post updating on the stuff that's been happening, but more of what God's doing in my life through this experience. The last 2 days have been very eye opening for me. Last night, we had a movie night and I left frustrated. I was trying to so hard to sit with kids and hang out, yet they kept moving. I've felt disappointed at times, that I don't have the relationships with students that I've had in the past. This group doesn't seem to want to hang outside of church as much, and do the things that I enjoyed doing. As I thought about that, I began to get fairly discouraged. Today, at a Christian music festival, I heard Shaun Groves and the words of the chorus of a song stood out...

Lord I want so many things
What I need has never changed
Teach my wayward heart each day
No matter what I chase or crave
That all this wanting only makes
Me need you more
I need you more

I have in my head what ministry should look like, or how relationships should be built, but I need to focus on Christ, and realize that it's all in his timing, and He has a great plan, and I need to be willing to trust in Him and continue to focus on what He has. As I've been reading the Alaska trip blog, it's encouraged me to keep focusing on others and letting God work and have faith that he will! It may not be how I percieved it was going to be but he will. My prayer is that I will continue to trust in His timing, and take advantage of those times that I have with the teens but also with my peers as well! It's awesome to get comments so keep em coming! Good night!