BSM

man… i love jr high students! this past weekend we took a crew of our jr high students to chicago for a weekend conference called Believe.  it was awesome!

we went up last friday, got our hotel rooms, at at this awesome place in chicago called ‘portello’s’, at least i think that was the name of it. o man… the italian beef sandwich was AMAZING! if u haven’t been, its actually worth the drive to chicago for that alone.  so after hittin up some amazing grub, we headed to the conference.  first night was awesome! the whole weekend was centered around ‘Messiah’ and who He is and what He does and what He wants for us in our lives.  it was so awesome.  Kurt was the speaker and he did an amazing job.  and after every session, we broke into smaller groups to talk about what Kurt had just taught about.  so we had two groups and we crammed each group into a hotel room back at our place and hung out and got to know each other and talked about some pretty cool stuff.  the small group questions were hidden inside of fortune cookies, which was really sweet (and delicious).  the questions were really cool and led us into some pretty deep discussions.  and we were able to do that after each session.  so friday night ended and we went to bed late, and then the crazy stuff happened! we have some students with weird night time behaviors.  in the hotel room, there were 2 beds and 2 people sleeping on each bed (so 4 to a room). i woke up in the middle of the night to see Aaron (who was supposed to be sleeping next to me) sitting on the end of the other bed, just starring at Jackson.  when i asked him what he was doing, he said ‘i really like his shirt’.  HAHA!  but Aaron has a history of this sort of thing.  last year in the middle of the night, he sat up and screamed ‘THERE’S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!’  so… never a dull moment.

so saturday we get up and continue the conference and it all rocked.  Kurt really did an awesome job teaching about Jesus and calling students to transformed living.  and throughout the whole weekend, our buddy Eric Timm was there too.  and man did Eric rock! we get to see Eric do his thing all the time.  he goes to a couple of the same conference that we do, so sometimes we see him 2 or 3 times a year.  but it was cool to see him and he actually came and ate at lunch with us for a few on Saturday.  we really love Eric and his ministry and what he does has impacted a lot of students in our ministry over the years.   for each session, eric had a different painting that represented the Messiah in a different way, and at the end, he put them all together and it was an awesome moment.

after saturday’s sessions were over, we had an epic SNOWBALL FIGHT in the parking lot.  it was crazy! Ashton got thrown in the mud and Danny took one in the face!  after that was over, we went back to the hotel, had our last small group sessions, and made way to the pool! they had a sweet indoor/outdoor pool, and outside there was snow one the ground, so our snowball fight picked back up, but in the pool this time, until security put an end to that one… ugh!  and then sunday morning we went to church at Willow Creek and then headed back home!

we had a great time! the snowball fights were a blast, but my favorite things about all the weekend was our small group times and the discussions we had there.  we talked about some pretty deep stuff and i know God was working on a lot of our hearts.  i hope that we all remember what God said to us last weekend and that we will live our lives different because of it