Walls

Kearney First United Methodist Youth Group---proud to be called a "leader"of these kids.

The theme of this year's Youth Retreat was "Walls." We spent time talking about the walls we all build based on our past, present, and future experiences, insecurities, emotions, etc. Everyone that attended wrote their personal "wall" on a brick in this wall. This picture below is my favorite except it breaks my heart that these beautiful young people are feeling such pain in their heart and minds.

The first night we all named our walls during worship. Really emotional experience. God was with us for sure.

Night #2 we talked about tearing down our walls and the tools God gives us to tear down the walls......The Bible, prayer, faith, grace, unconditional love, forgiveness, etc. We had the kids come up and pull out "pre-determined" parts of the wall to reveal a cross.....

This is what it looked like during worship. Penni McNellis is such a creative soul... what a God inspired person. Love her, love her work.

We met in this room for worship and games/group learning. This was during worship time. The praise band is key to the overall awesomeness of the weekend.

This was easily on my Best Weekend Ever list. I feel so free with these kids to be myself, but at the same time, try and BETTER myself. My family would never believe some of the crazy arse things I did with these teenagers to be a "cool" counselor. For reals. I easily had 10+ years on all the other leaders and I hope it wasn't painfully obvious. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like to play games. Well, this weekend, I was a game player. I acted, I danced, I sang, I cheered, I played, I taught, I learned, I cried, I listened, I laughed and I laughed and I laughed. Did I mention how lucky I was to be paired with a young man named "Werm" who made my weekend of teaching the Bible so much easier. Thankful that our youth are going to get the benefit of having him as our newly hired youth assistant. Praise God!

such a fun weekend. I am already looking forward to next year.