Oh what a night!

Had a great Youth Ministry Session last night. I had invited a group that runs an ecumenical Christian summer camp called Summer Festival to visit and promote themselves. I attended this camp when I was in 8th and 9th grade and was later a counselor for my church when I was older. It really was a life changing experience and influenced my decision to go into ministry. In addition to having a really fun night some other cool things happened. A young man who comes from a VERY troubled home (I won't even go into the details but it's BAD!) whose grandma MAKES him come to Youth Ministry brought a friend with him. Initially I was a little nervous. This kid has never done anything really bad but in general makes inappropriate comments and doesn't like to participate. So, I was concerned that his friend might be similar or worse! On the other hand this for this young man to invite another friend to a church event really said something to me. I asked the friend what church he attended and he said he didn't even know "what" he was. I also saw this as an opportunity to minister to someone might not ever get to hear The Good News. It actually went really well. The "friend" was just fine and actually participated in the games and such. My "troubled" friend also participating on our activities. It was nothing earth shattering but I felt some good was done. I don't know if any of my kids will be interested in attending Summer Festival. Some how giving up a week of my summer to take kids to it doesn't seems like such a sacrifice. We shall see. After our gathering the promo team asked if there was a Rocky Rococo's in town where they could get some pizza for dinner. I told them "yes!" and gave them directions. They invited me along! Even though it was late (for me any way) and I really wanted to get back into my 5:30am workout routine (I've been sick and out of it lately) I went. It was really great! They are such cool people doing such good work. The one guy BoBo must be in his 50's and was at camp when I was in middle school. He's kind of an idol to the campers and I felt really cool to just hang with them (I know how old am I???). It made me realize how unsocial I am. My job forces me to be social and interact with people so much that I tend to shy away from social invites. I also get to see my husband so little that if I have an opportunity to spend time with him I opt for that. Not sure what to think about that. Anyway, it was a great night, it refreshed my ministry!

p.s. I did get up at 6am and worked out for 30 minutes... I needed too after eating that pizza!