Our Week at Student Life

Matthew and I spent last week with our church youth attending a Student Life conference in Myrtle Beach, SC. We had a great time reconnecting with our students, enjoying the beach, and growing to understand the complex attitudes of Christ and how we can make them our own. Jesus, although fully God, was just as human as us and therefore had many sides to His personality. Each chaperone was responsible to lead a "family group" time each day (similar to a Sunday School lesson) in which we explored how Jesus related to those people with whom He interacted. They were interesting lessons however it was hard to get much interaction from the teenage girls I was leading at 8:30am! I pray the overall message sunk in.

Each day began with breakfast (in our rooms) and then "family group" time. We then all headed to the buses and drove to the MB Convention Center for Morning Celebration. It was a lot of fun and included opening announcements from four "secret agents" (four SL actors each with their own funny personalities and accents), worship music from Starfield (band from Canada who were so "hot" according to the younger girls), and short talk from our camp pastor David Nasser. He was a great speaker and had a really eye-opening viewpoint on Christianity as he's an Iranian who was raised Muslim, but became a Christian after moving to the US as a teenager. David's morning messages were about famous Christians who we might not know a lot about (i.e. Charles Spurgeon and Corrie Ten Boom).

Next back to the buses and to our hotels for lunch in our room (we had full kitchens so this was a great way to save money and time -- the church provided each room with milk, o.j., poptarts, cereal, bread, lunchmeat, corndogs, chips, and soda). From 1:00pm until 5:00pm, we had free time. Each day fell a little differently as Tropical Storm Alberto came on through during our week, but overall it wasn't that bad. Tuesday, we all played on the beach beneath an overcast sky (no sunburns!); Wednesday, we some headed to Broadway at the Beach while others stayed in their rooms because Alberto's winds caused a strong riptide current (no one in the ocean!); and Thursday, back on the beach from 1:00pm until 3:30pm (beautiful, picture-perfect, blue sky) before getting ready for a nice dinner out.

After dinner each night (fast food each day except Chinese Buffet on Thursday), we bused back to the convention center for our evening worship. More music from Starfield (I kept calling them Starfish by mistake!) and a message from David. He really wanted us to expand our view of Christ. One very interesting comment was that is you act like a Christian, it doesn't just make you a Christian. However, if you are a Christian, you better start acting like one. David also brought up the idea that violence is not always bad. Knowing whether to fight or not (i.e. organized wars, not fist fights) depends on what is at stake. The crucifixion was possibly the most violent act in history, and yet Jesus waged war at Calvary because we were at stake. David said something which I had never thought of before. God let out his wrath on the world by means of the flood. All people and animal life died except for those inside the ark with Noah. David said, "What is wrong with the picture that people now decorate their babies' nurseries with Noah's ark stuff? Americans have taken the violent truth out of the story and made it all pastel, smiling animals!!" Funny, yet true.

Friday came and I was READY to get back home to Philip. I had not worried about him much during the week as each time I called my brother, Mike, I could hear Philip singing in the background. They had a great week as well and I'll post photos as soon as Mike emails them to me. Once we did arrive back at our church, Mike, his wife Andrea and Philip were waiting in the parking lot. For the next 15 minutes, it was back and forth. Matthew would have Philip but he'd be reaching for me; I'd hold him and he'd be reaching for Matthew. Sweet boy didn't know which parent he wanted more.