Student Week

This week was Student Week. Monday through today (Friday) we would go down to the Boys and Girls Club and the field behind it for a hang out time with the students on the Westside. Each night we played games outside like volleyball or basketball, messy games, ultimate frisbee, then the video and small group discussion. Of course we couldn't leave them without a little snack at the end of the night (like Snow Cones (nothing like SnoBiz though), popcorn, icecream, and pizza). The messy games were hilarious. They included "Bum" Charades, Banana Barf, and popping a balloon with your nose. The banana game was so funny because the kids put a banana in their mouth, had to put a pair of panty hose over their heads, and then push the banana through the hosiery. The balloon game was tricky too because we covered the balloons in straight up lard. The kids had greasy hair and faces for the rest of the night for sure.

We met some really cool people this week too. Some of the leaders from other churches were super cool and came with us to DQ for some after student week yummies. And we met some guys who were just passing through the playground one night and got them to come hang out the next night too. They showed us how to cript walk (not sure if that's how it's spelled) and have been coming every night since we met them on Tuesday. They tried to get midnight premiere tickets to Batman with us, but they were sold out and we were all pretty sad they couldn't come with us.

This week has been full of cool God stuff. You could definately tell that Satan was attacking this week because a lot of leaders ended up not being able to come or provide some things they had said they could (like skate ramps), but the Lord really provided with the leaders who could come and His presence has been evident at Student Week and in all our conversations. Just having the confidence to go up and start a conversation with kids I normally would think I have nothing in common with is proof enough that He is with me every day.

On Wednesay Jamie told us to go out into the community and just talk with people. So me, Morganne, Mary, and Todd went to the Ferry Docks and the others went to a coffee shop in town. The day before was supposed to be our last day of handing out freezies, so we went to Peachland's Swim Bay, but for some reason I didn't grab the rest of the freezies. On Wednesday I asked the group if we should take freezies just to get rid of at the docks. So we grabbed the rest this time (there was probably like 15 left). When we got to the docks, there was a family with 4 kids and we just let them have as many halves as they wanted. We had a good convo with the mom and she was so interested in why we were up here from Georgia. After they left, another mom and her son talked with us for a while too. We kept giving out freezies the whole time we were there. Sometimes a random guy would come up and take a whole freezy, but we didn't care. The whole time we were there, there were 3 teenage guys on the other dock, and after we had been there about 45 minutes they decided to come over and get freezies. We told them only if they did a trick off the dock we would give them one. So they did, and we ended up having 3 left! We never checked to make sure we had enough either. How cool. I know that was a long story, but I thought it was so cool that we had just enough. Needless to say, I loved going to the docks and just hanging out and talking with people out in the community. That's what Potter's House wants to be known for, and even the second mom said that she knew all about the church because her son had done kid's club for 3 years.

Some extra fun stuff from this week: Emily taught me how to drive stick-shift!! She drives a black 2 door Honda Civic so it was like a little taste of home, but different. I miss my car sometimes. I only stalled a couple times trying to get into first, but after that it was pretty smooth sailing. Also we went to the midnight premiere of Batman last night! So fun. Eden brought her Guitar Hero for Nintendo DS and Hanna brought her iPod speakers so we could watch Aladdin on Eden's iPod while we waited in line for 2 hours for the movie to start. It was all worth it. Awesome week. Next week we are going camping. Lord help me. No, really it should be fun. I think we have a lakeside campsite, so that should be amazing.

Thanks for reading, praying, and thinking about me while I'm up here. I only have 2 weeks left, and I'm getting pretty sad thinking about leaving. As much as I am excited about next year, I'm learning so much, and God feels so close here. Part of me doesn't want to go back to my comfortable everyday life, but I do know that that's part of the challenge... to take all the things God is teaching me here and bring them back with me.

Love you and miss you all.