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