This past week, I went to this thing called EPIC. While there, I did many things, learned a lot, met many new friends, and got to try and show kids Christ, on top of a lot more.
Well, when we got there on Sunday night, we basically learned what the week was going to be like, but then we had this thing that we did in order to give us a little clue as to what to expect, and I volunteered to be one of the people in it. Well, little did I know that I would be getting shaving cream all over my face, to have cheese balls thrown at me haha. I will admit, this was an amusing way to start off the week, but at the same time it was kind of weird, since I was sitting in a room of people I didn't know getting cheese balls thrown in my face haha. It's okay though because a few of my friends were literally right beside me having the same thing done to them.
Before I tell you about the rest of the week, you must know that we had 6 groups. 2 Holy Spirit groups, which were both Middle School groups, 2 Saint John Middle School groups, and 2 Saint John High school groups. We did that more for an order thing , or something like that. Anyway.
On Monday, after breakfast, we all gathered in the youth center for a devotional. I think this was a very good way to start the day since I know that personally I have a hard time with getting into the word of God every single day, and just having that time set apart specifically for it was really needed. We studied mainly on the book of Colossians, because that book has a lot about God's works, and such. After the devotional, we set out for Jubilee Acres, which is where we would be helping Rescue mission kids all week have the best time they could possibly have. Monday though, The two middle school groups were the ones who stayed with the Rescue mission kids while the two high schools groups, which I was in, went hiking at the Cascades, yes, the coldest water you could possibly think of for hiking. It was fun though, I got to do flips and junk into it, and people though me and my friend were nuts for sitting in the water still for more than 3 seconds. :) Fun day. We then went back and had some free time, until Dinner, then we had a little more free time to do whatever and then we had worship. I think worship for some reason this week actually became a personal thing for me, because I know that worship is meant to be you surrendering yourself fully to God, and not caring what other people think about it. Well, I do have my sense of pride, so I do care a lot of itmes what people think about me. This week, though, something changed and I was no longer prideful enough to let my own thoughts care about myself. It was awesome
Tuesday, we woke up, had breakfast, and all that junk, then we had another devotional. This was a daily thing, and I won't go into details since it was a lot of the same thing every morning haha. We then went back to Jubilee Acres, and this time the middle school group from Saint John went hiking. So it was my groups, and the two Holy Spirit groups working with the kids trying to help them have a great time. I jsut stood back and took pictures mostly, because I'm not very good with 5-7 year old kids, haha.The kids were great though, so it was no big deal. When we went back to the church, we got to help out with VBS. I didn't do anything that day, but it was rather amusing to see my friends doing the things they were doing. We then had dinner and worshipped again. After worship, we sat down and talked all as a big group, and it was awesome, because we got to share about where we saw God working that day, and it was awesome that even my friend who went into that week not knowing Christ, had things to share where he was seeing God work. That was one of the highlights of my week.
Wednesday was the same start. Instead of going to Jubilee Acres, though, we went to the New River instead. we all went tubing down the New River, and I must say, I've never had so much fun going down a little bit more than a lazy river haha. I had a group of 6 people that I went down with the first time we did, and we just chilled and talked for a while. We then arranged ourselves in a chain-like thing, and went down the rapids like that. Get this though: On the way through the rapids, my friend fell off her tube, and was trying to get back on. Well, she sort of gets on again, and we save her midway. She grabbed onto us as we grabbed onto her, and we came out of the rapids with 7 people. It was awesome haha. That's not all. We could go down the rapids as many time as we wanted, so we all walked back up, and on the way up we recruited a few more people to join our chain. We went down the rapids again, with a total of about 36 people. I think it was awesome considering people would be exiting rapids as soon as people would be entering haha. That was the funniest part, other than my friend Stefani getting pushed away by my friend, Ben. That was really funny. The highlight for me of that day was teaching my friend Jonathan how to do a backflip on straight ground. Hasn't tried it yet as far as I know, but he will. I then landed my first side flip. It was such an adrenaline rush. We then went back to the church, and dinner and worship. After worship, we sat down again, and my friend who didn't know Christ said that he wanted to know God, but he couldn't feel it in his heart. We all prayed for him to meet Christ, and hoped that something would come out of it. That's not all. After bed time, my friend we had just prayed for, my friend Jonathan, and I snuck away, and went into the sanctuary. While we were there, My friend Jonathan told his story to us. I must say, people think that the things I go through in life are hard, but this guys story takes the cake. I'm glad he found Christ, because I'm not sure I would ever have known him if he hadn't. I then shared my story with them, and we went off to bed afterwards, because it was like 3 AM haha.
Thursday, the mornings have begun to be a ritual. We all knew it was the last night we had together, so we were going to make the best of it. We went back to Jubilee Acres, and the two Saint John groups were with the kids. Well, sort of. There were two groups there, and half of one group was on "station duty" even though we were never taught what to do haha. The other half of that group was doing a series of things that were made to help build up your trust in the group. This was very eye-opening, in a way. Since they had you close your eyes, you had to trust that the people you were grouped with would not let you fall, though you could not see them. This really screamed out Christ to me, because when you put your faith in Christ, you can't physically see Him, but He is always going to be there for you, and He won't let you fall. It was a very cool thing that we did. We helped out with VBS again when we got back to the church, and this time I was playing the part of one of the people who just walks by the person who gets robbed in the story of the good Samaritan. How mean of me, right? After we had worship, we, instead of having a time to sit and talk about where we saw God that day, we had a dance party with Glow sticks and shutter shades. Heck yes! haha. We quite literally danced til we were too tired to dance anymore, then we danced some more. We then had a bonfire going, and it was great to have the fellowship of all the new friends we had made that week. We just had a blast with each other, and we were singing songs and all that fun stuff. We then went to bed.
Friday, the final day. All 6 groups were at Jubilee Acres this time. We were all there to help the kids have the best time they could have. Doing whatever they wanted. After lunch though, while everyone else was watching a movie, a few friends and I started filming this movie. We decided that it would be a good idea to make a parody of the story of Daniel and the Lion's den. Instead of lions, we used fire ants. Well, we didn't have fire ants either, but you get the picture. It was really hard for me to do this, because the guy that I was doing most of the movie with kept making me laugh, so we have many outtakes of me and Justin as we attempt to make the movie great. We got through it though, and I can not wait to watch it. I kind of learned what it's like to be in Hollywood. Where we always cut and retake. It was cool though, towards the end of the movie, something clicked in me, and I was able to go through scenes with no errors on the first try. Corey though, was doing that like he did it for a living haha. It was cool though. Can't wait for it to hit youtube. I'll probably post it here if I can. We went to Loch Haven lake for my friend Haley's birthday party, and to celebrate an EPIC week, no pun intended. It was really fun to be there with all the friends that I had just made, and the cool thing was teaching my friend Jonathan how to do a backflip from the high dive. I then did a gainer off a high dive. I've done it off of a deck, but I didn't think it would be the same. It was haha.
The coolest thing about this week was my friend that wanted to get to know Christ so badly did come to meet Him. Praise God for that. I also think that is was cool that all of the middle schoolers there were so in touch with God. I saw my buddy Cole there and he was the first middle schooler I know that actually just let go of himself and fully surrendered himself to God during worship. He's got such a strong heart for the Lord, and I hope that continues. He's also going to be a famous singer one day, because he is a total BOSS at singing. I met a lot of new friends, and I must say that this week is definitely going to have an affect on how I live my life as a Christian and how I reach out to my friends who don't know the Lord. My absolute favorite thing that happened though was one Wednesday I got a call from my Young Life leader. He called to tell me that he had enough money to send my brother to Young Life camp, and I just about cried of joy. It was one of the best feelings that I could have knowing that my brother might be on his way to at least hearing the message loud and clear. I just hope he decides to go. All in all, from the friends, to the times, to the time with God, it was one of the best weeks that I have had in a good long while. I still can't wait for Saranac though. That's going to be the best week ever. I can just tell.
Well, I hope that you all get to have a week like this at some point. Everyone deserves to have times like this in their lives, even if they have to make things like this happen themselves.
I love you guys.
TJ
P.S. I am freaking excited. 4 days til Saranac.
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