Wednesday, September 06, 2006

the adventure begins

I am exhausted. I know I am staying waaaay too busy right now, but today was a doozy. This new endeavour is far more work than I thought it would be. Last Wednesday was scheduled to be my first time leading youth group, but it was cancelled because of the threat of Tropical Storm Ernesto. I feel like that was a blessing in disguise because it gave me some much needed extra time to try and get things together.

So tonight ended up being my first time to lead a youth group meeting. I spent pretty much my entire afternoon making last minute preparations including coming up with some back-up games I could do inside since the possibility of rain was very high. I felt overwhelmed, but suddenly got excited...like first day of camp, I can't wait to see these kids I've not seen in a year excited. It took me by surprise. All of the anxiety I had been feeling for a week was replaced almost entirely with me looking forward to the evening. What a gift!

When I was thinking about taking this new job one of the first people I spoke with about it was my friend Kim, Ru's wife. She was unbelievably encouraging and I remember saying to her that one of the things I needed to remind myself regularly is that I'm not so big that I can screw up what God wants to accomplish. He's going to do it no matter how much I mess up. I think that might have finally sunk in because when I got in front of the kids to lead games and then give them a short lesson, I didn't even feel nervous. I wanted it to go well, but I wasn't freaking out and my heart wasn't going crazy. Just a few weeks ago when I had to introduce myself to the church my heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to bust right through my chest. But tonight no heart pounding.

Did the evening go perfectly? It went well, but there was room for improvement. I definitely need to work on my speaking skills (one of the kids told me, "It's not a sermon unless you sweat."), but I feel God was there. And that's excitement. I also threw some shout-outs to places I love that have helped me get where I am now, which was a lot of fun for me. For our games I totally stole some of the Friday night games we do with adults on Family Weekends at Circle F. And while people were arriving I played a cd by 10th Avenue North, a tribute to my TNL days.

Here are a few photos from the evening:

Oh, yeah. Chick-fil-A before getting to the meeting.


So I'm pretty sick of pizza, but love it for pictures like this one.



Funny girls.



In unrelated news, I picked up the 2nd season of Lost last night and have watched the first two episodes. I'd forgotten what a great show that is. Speaking of, I think I'll go unwind by watching that 3rd episode.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

awesome advice from Kim...I'll definitely remember that.
kelly

Anonymous said...

That is good advice from Kim. I've heard it from other people, too, and somehow always manage to forget...Anyway, I'm glad things went so well. I can tell you feel very encouraged.
-Anna

M. Flexibilis said...

Sounds like you did great. (We all knew you would! :-) ) I'm really happy that you decided to give this calling a try. We'll be praying for you and your kids.

Jason said...

thanks for the encouragement, guys!