Well, That's a Wrap on Number 7!!

We finished our 7th Young Life of the year tonight! (I can't believe we've been through that many already!!) Any let me tell you, tonight was a blast! We had 31 highschoolers, 36 of us there all together! It was a full, full room! So, as a quick aside, if you know of anyone in the Sprague area that would like to open there doors to 40 high schoolers every week (I anticipate growth!) give them my number! We are looking for a new place. Anyway, back to tonight! It was such a high energy evening. We sang some great songs (You Belong with Me- Taylor Swift, Ring of Fire- Johnny Cash, and I still Haven't Found- U2) and played a very fun game, two people slap each other in the face with a hot dog and the first one to laugh (or break the hot dog) loses. I talked about the story of Nicodemus and him coming to ask Jesus questions in the night, and how we often feel like we can ask people questions, but not God. I made the point that God is big enough for us to ask him questions and even be mad at him if we need to. We played the song "Jesus, Jesus" by Noah Gunderson (I censored it in a few places) that really is just a dialogue with Jesus put to music. I think this was out best Young Life yet, energy wise, honesty wise, and relationally. We are really starting to see fruit! Thank you all so much for helping this to happen, through prayer and funds and everything else! Thanks again to the Marshall's for giving us there house for the night and for the Schaefer's for hosting us for dinner! If any of you read this and want to get involved, just give me a call and we've got plenty of roles for you! (Leaders, dinner hosts, donors, prayer partners, offering up your house, the list goes on and on!) Thanks again! -Mat

Have we really done six already?!?

This was a big week. It was our first week with more than 30 HIGH SCHOOLERS!!!! Boy, I know I've said we had a lot of energy every week, but this one topped them all. We had a bunch of new faces, and all the usual's. We sang some of our group favorites (including Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, and Hero by Enrique Iglesias) and played some great games (we sculpted spam) and drank some "fitness shakes" (which included bananas, banana flavored 'muscle milk' v8 juice, chocolate soy milk, and some soda). Tonight was our question and answer night. We encouraged students to be thinking about any God/Jesus/Christianity/Religion based questions they've always wanted to ask and we told them we would answer them to the best of our ability. It was a tough night, let me know you, these guys and gals of some serious and difficult questions. I feel honored to be in a place where we are able to speak to those question! We had a panel of question answers (made up of leaders, Jeremy Joseph, Ben Martin, and myself) and answered questions for about 18 minutes. We had six questions we didn't get to that we will be answering a few of each week to come. The question dealt with suffering, violence in the bible, homosexuality, forgiveness, atonement (or how God deals with our sin through Jesus), and questions about why Jesus came) It was a good time, and after wards Dairy Queen was a welcomed breath of energy and a place to unwind after some serious thinking! All in all, such a good week! Also, this was our first week with our NEW SOUND SYSTEM!!!! Thank you so much to all of you who helped with donations to make that possible! It was such a blessing to our leadership team not to have to piece together a giant system, and to be able to leave a lot of it at the Marshall's house to store there. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, your donations literally freed up hours out of my Monday getting sound system stuff ready!! God is good, we are seeing growth and fruit, I'm so excited for camp this summer and for God to take us to the next level! -Mat

Young Life, Chapter 5

Tonight was a good night! We started off with a wonderful dinner by some of our even more wonderful Sprague Young Life supporters (every week before Young Life we have a team dinner hosted by different families in the community, so far we have been blessed to eat at the Marshall's, the Schaefer's, the Rawlings', the Hancock's, and the Chin's. If you read this and think, "Gee Wiz, I'd love to host dinner for them" let us know!) After a great meal we headed for set up, and boy, what a night! I'm always amazed by the amount of energy and noise high schoolers make, and how much they make me laugh. We had our characters come out again tonight and teach us how to work out while we eat (attach 25 pound weights to our forks) and had Brad and John demonstrate the technique in a race. We sang some current songs (and one not-so-current, brown eyed girl anyone?) And then onto the talk. Tonight I shared from Luke 5:17-26, which is the story of the paralyzed man lowered through the roof. I shared how he could not get out of that situation without Jesus' help, and posed the question, "Are there places in our life where we are stuck, and would there be any of these places we could ask for Jesus' help in?" All in all, it was a good night. We have finally raised enough money for our base sound system (now for getting necessary additions like microphone stands, cables, etc...) and our donuts have built up quite the reserve (of course, we could always use funds if you are interested in helping support this mission). We had just over 20 high schoolers again tonight. I am encouraged to say that each week we have new people join us, and each week some can't make it because of outside commitments. That said, I believe we have over 40 people that come to Young Life, so please pray that they all show up next week, and that they each bring a friend. Next week is our last Young Life before Spring Break, I'd love to have to spend Spring Break looking for a new (larger) space to have our Young Life club! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the support you have all showed us, whether it's prayer, or meals, or funds, or all of the above, we couldn't do this without each and every one of you (and of course, the Holy Spirit). Thank you, thank you, thank you. -Mat

*on one final note, dear Austin, sorry I didn't get this uploaded by 10:30, there were some very important things that came up that I had to get done first, I hope you forgive me ; )

The Fourth Go Around

Well It's once again Monday which means we had another Young Life tonight! It was a great night tonight. There is so much energy in that room, the video just doesn't do it justice! We borrowed a sound system tonight (Trinity Covenant Church, the second part of my job, has part of a spare sound system so with that and taking another part of our current sound system we have enough for a working system for now, that said, it is a lot of work and not really right for us, it'll do for now, but we're only $200 away from the sound system of our dreams, well not our dreams, but a very affordable sound system that would meet our needs, so if you're interested in helping us reach that goal feel free to let me know!) and having the system made all the difference, we were able to lead songs well, keep students attention, and really add energy with louder songs and a better sounding camp video. It was incredible to be able to push ourselves technologically, and student's commented on the positive change! Tonight we had our first encounter with our "Run-on Characters" (Two characters that come on and talk about their "fitness camp" at Washington Family Ranch July 3-9th (the dates of our Young Life camp at Washington Family Ranch) Our leaders Julie and Ben were Pectorals Major, and Gluteus Maxine, two work out instructors featured in the video, they'll be back in weeks to come! We played a full body version of rock paper scissors tonight and sang some great songs (which we received multiple compliments about) and ended the evening with a talk. I started by playing the song "Nobody Knows Me at All" by The Weepies (if you haven't heard it give it a listen! The song includes so many good lines including "I've got lots of friends, yes, but then again, nobody knows me at all" I stated that I feel like all of us felt that way sometimes. I shared a personal story about an occasion when I felt completely unknown and alone, and from their transitioned into the story from John 4 of the Samaritan Woman at the Well. I talked about how she certainly felt the way that song described and then pointed out how Jesus knew "everything she has ever done" and LOVED her in spite of it. I heard multiple positives comments from the talk, so despite all my shortcomings God did some good things through it! Thank you all for your prayers! On a quick side note, we've been giving out 6 dozen donuts for free at Sprague High School on Thursday mornings and on Sunday I shared with Trinity Covenant what we were doing, at the end of both services I had been given $421 (not counting the $150 we had already raised) bringing us to a grand total of $571 to purchase donuts for Sprague students! Needless to say we will be buying more donuts this week and will certainly be able to be there through the rest of this year! Anyway, this has been a long one. Thanks again for everything, you are all such a blessing to us all! -Mat