Oregon Updates

Wow just like old times. I'm updating from the wonderful little town of Stayton, Oregon. I'm sitting in Wescott's house, housesitting and taking care of Coco for the weekend. This week has been really good. I've spent too much time in a car but it's worth it. I've been here in Stayton since Thursday night (the 2nd time this week) and have had a blast relaxing. It's a great break before the New year kicks off busier than ever. I spent Wednesday and Thursday in Olympia, and had a great time hanging out with a bunch of students. Pizza, a guitar lesson and applebees all Wednesday and then Thursday I spent in the office getting my calendar out (it was out before Jan. 1, only a bit late though). I'm excited about the next few months. I have the chance to plan my own events and put my own flavor into the events we do, instead of just following the premade calendar.
A couple prayer requests.
1. A senior student wants to do his senior project on youth ministry in a non-paid credit intern project with me, so pray for structure of that in the right way.
2. Also there has been some desire to start a guys small group, so pray for what that might look like as well.
It's been a great year, and I'm excited to see what God does in 2006. Happy New Year

Sorry been a while

Hey all, sorry for all my faithful readers (Jan, Brian and Kellie I think) it's been a long time since my last update. Things are going really well. This has been a great week. No planned youth group activities to prepare for, so I've spent a lot of time with students. Lots of pizza out and video games. Also had a great jr. high Christmas Party. It's been a great chance to also look at some planning stuff. I think I'll have the calendar out next week. 3 days before the new year, not bad! Next week will be nice as well. Getting some R & R in Oregon as well as 2 days of hopefully hanging out with students back up in Olympia, before new year's in Oregon. It's been great to relax this week but also keep busy with students. I'm very encouraged with how things are going. Students want to hang out with me outside of church, which is awesome. They're also disappointed when we don't have events. Great thing!

Also had our leader Christmas party last week, a great time of just spending time with the staff. I'm also excited about the new year and some of the awesome things planned! It's 1 A.M. sorry about the rambled update. I'll be at Christmas Eve Service at 11 hopefully, Have a Merry Christmas for those I don't see!

brad

Learning Experiences...

This past week has been one of those week where at some point I'll be able to look back and laugh. Seemed liked everything was just a bit off last week. Wednesday night our worship leader was gone from jr. high so I was to lead. Granted I don't play guitar that well, but the guitar was so out of tune that it was pointless, so we tried to sing acapela. That worked well for about half a song. The jr. highers were crazy, didnj't listen well, just overall a tough night. Saturday we did a day called Christmas in Seattle. We went ice skating and walked around the center, and saw narnia at cinerama (3rd time I've seen it in 2 days). Fun day, all the students loved it, but a few highlights.

• Lost my debit card somewhere in the center
• One of my leader's got a parking ticket
• We got lost from Cinerama to Dick's burgers.
• Had one student puke several times
• Were 30 min. late getting home (did call parents)

Just a fun eventful jr. high day.

High school this week has also been eventful. We had 19 students come to Narnia Friday night. It was fun to hang out with everyone and see a nice crowd excited about it. Sunday night was fairly good. Had a bigger number of students we've had in a couple weeks and it was a tough week. Everything went well, just had to lay down the law a little more than I'd like too. It was cool to see the worship team come together. Had lots of new faces up there this week, and they did a good job.

This week is pretty light in terms of events. We have normal jr. high then our high school christmas party on sunday. Nice to not have a lot of prep work, because it lets me look at some calendar stuff and do some more down the road things.

Continue to pray for our church in the process of finding an interim pastor. Pray for opportunities to continue to build relationships with students over break when there's no formal events.

This week I'll be up on Friday for the wedding, so hope to see many of you there. I'll also be up in the area Wed. night and thinking applebees if anyone's up for it.

Brad

Update

Hey, thought I should update. Lots has happened in the last week. Jr. High last wednesday went really well. I'm excited about our jr. high group. They have a blast coming and I hope it continues. High School this week was a lot more difficult. Our plan was to decorate for Christmas during Sunday School. That would've worked out well if someone hadn't donated all of our donations to the Union Gospel Mission, so we had to go to plan B. And last night at crew was frustrating. Feels like we're in the stage where some are trying to test the rules and see how much they can get away with. Last night was a night where a bunch of them tried to do it all at once. Thankfully I have a great leadership staff that helps take the pressure off. They're awesome! This week is shaping up to be a difficult one. Jr. high is drastically low on staff this week, so be praying for that. And I'm also leading worship Wed. First time ever! Gotta love new learning experiences. So really good week, but crazy church wise!