Rocking out in Memphis

At the end of last month, I had a chance to go visit my best friend, Josh Manning. I was going to make the trip to Henderson TN (about 7 hours away) by my lonesome, but the boys in our youth group decided they would like to tag along. We thought we would make a pit stop at Memphis, see the sights, see where I went to school, play some disk golf, eat some awesome food, and see a band. We were to meet Josh in Memphis and spend the night with him and three other Freed-Hardeman University students, before going to see Freed in the Morning.

So, we got to Memphis and stopped at a few places we thought looked interesting.

Seeing sights: Check

We drove around (I got lost) trying to find disk golf disks for about an hour and a half. When we finally found a sporting good store that sold them it was dumping down rain.

Disk Golf: FAIL!

So we went and took a short tour of my life by visiting the Memphis School of Preaching.

Visiting my old School: Check!

By this time we were hungry so we went to the greatest hot wing establishment in the history of forever, Ching's Wings. If you go to Memphis, there is a unwritten rule that you only hurt yourself if you break. Go down to Getwell Rd. and eat at Ching's Wings. It's a rule! I didn't write it, I'm just telling--ok so maybe I did write it, but it's a good rule. We ate about 40 of our 50 wings and I must say, this is the fist time I have ever seen a meal that these boys could not finish, or wanted to be able to finish more than this one.

Eat some awesome food: Check, Check! Yum...

So with full bellies and happy hearts we left Ching's to go to down town Memphis a hear a band. Which seems to have placed my name near the top of the boys' awesome list.

See a band: Check!

By now we were worn out and headed to Henderson to spend a night with the Freed Students.

Joshua Manning

&

Emory Buckner
&
Two guys not shown here (hey, you can't expect me to have pictures of everything).

They were a lot of fun to hang around, and they were kind enough to give us a place to stay and allow us to play video games all night on their big screen TV.

Night with Freed Students: Check!

The next morning we were to go and see Freed-Hardeman University... but I may not have realized that this was school break time and there were no tours to be had. Out tour was nothing more than a drive by with me telling which building was what. Which worked out because we needed to get back to Mena before nightfall anyway.

Tour FHU: EPIC FAIL!

Oh well, 5 out of 7 ain't bad, especially when you throw a trip like this together at the last moment. On the ride back we talked about the benefits of Christian Universities and planned a lot of things for the youth and education department. Good trip with a great bunch of people. I'm looking forward to our next road trip!

Jr. Jamboree

What a wonderful day we had Saturday! See this picture?

That is more than half of our regularly attending children between 3-9 (which is the age group this event was directed towards). YAY!! I'll call that a success!

We spent plenty of time on fun and games, fed our little soldiers, and then took them out to battle. You see, we studied about Joshua taking Moses' place as leader of Israel, and how he was able to lead the Jews to do what their forefathers had been to afraid to do; take the promised land.

Deanna, Cindy, and I made paper mache angels (or something the bore a vague resemblance to paper mache angels) to top the ark of the covenant I built (it's amazing what you can do with foam board and duct tape). Anyway, thanks to our hard work we were able to top off out prop.

I also turned a refrigerator box into the walls of Jericho, and Deanna was kind enough to stand inside and hold all four walls up while we prepared our attack.

So as the Lord instructed (well, ok, we used priestesses instead of priests... we were short on priests) we made our attack. "See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days.Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him." (Joshua 6:2-5 ESV).

So around...

And around...

And around...

And several more times around they went. And then, lo and behold, when they blew there horns....

The walls fell down flat!!

And would you look at that sky! Sure, I picked the stormiest days of the year for the first 2 times we tried to have this even... but Saturday was beautiful. third times the charm, and patience really does pay off. Thank you Lord, for a beautiful and funfilled day!

P.S. Yes, I know the wallpaper on the walls fell prematurely, but I don't care... close enough.

Just playing around

Here's a little confession: I have no idea what I am doing more than half the time! I love kids, and I want to help the grow up in a close relationship with God. But I am not sure exactly how to do that. While some have degrees in youth ministry, I do not. This is a whole new ball park to me. I am guessing and praying most of the time.

But once in a while, I see something and I get this image in my head, and I know what I have planned is going to be awesomely fun, and I feel like I know what I'm doing. Last week, that image looked something like this:
Now, after seeing what I saw, could you pass up the candy mustaches I found in the candy isle? I didn't think so.

I wish I could say that I found some awesome and clever way to tie this into the Bible lesson we had that night, but I did not. And that's ok. Some times the best way to connect with kids it to just play around and have some fun.

And little guys have no problem doing silly little things like this. They enjoyed it just as much as I did. They have asked me for another one every time they have seen me since (and I live with 3 of them).

The Big guys on the other hand, they just give you a look like this when you ask:

Well... not all of the big kids.

P.S. Stay tuned for the Jr. Jamboree Post, it should be awesome.