The Weekend!

Disciple Now was this weekend. We have been a host home for Disciple Now for 4 years, for Emily's group. Since this is the first year we have had two in the youth group, we decided to host Owen's group, sixth grade boys. Last year, we had 9th grade girls; needless to say, switching from 9th grade girls to 6th grade boys was quite a culture shock. I have to admit that I was a little nervous. We get college-aged small group leaders and they stay the weekend as well. Truth be told, I was even more nervous when I was given the list of said leaders. I didn't know either of them personally. However, they did a fabulous job. As you will see, they had no problems "connecting" with the boys.
This is a game of football on Saturday. We were so thankful that the rain stopped long enough for them to be outside for a while. There was ALOT of energy!
This is the mastermind "huddle."

In the middle of all of this, Owen and I had to go to Kernersville for his first gymnastics meet. He did very well. He came in 7th place overall and his team came in 3rd place. We left on Saturday around 2 and got back at almost midnight. The lady that so generously let us ride with her so that Ryan could keep the van, hit a deer on her way home. She was fine, the deer was fine, the van - not so much.

This is a prime example of the small group leader "connecting" with the boys. They were getting ready for bed, yeah right! :) One of the other major differences between the girls and boys was during the night (when all were sleeping) with girls you would hear a giggle here and there; with boys you hear laughing followed by a crash. At which, I get to elbow Ryan and send him downstairs.

This was their other favorite past time. I knew it was a perfect match when the boys were asking Owen on the way home what sort of gaming system he had. Ryan had connected the playstation to the projector so they could play the game on the wall. One of the small group leaders came with his own gaming system and games and controllers! One group was playing one game downstairs and another group was playing upstairs. Nope, you don't get that with girls.

They did branch out and play something other than football and video games. Ryan had gotten a big stack of games out (the girl's favorites) and the boys played this one over and over.

On Saturday the boys had to do a service project. We, with a little help from my friend Beth, decided to make care packages for soldiers. We were uncertain of the weather and couldn't see the boys being entranced by "baking cookies." They got into the soldier project. Ryan and the two small group leaders went to Wal-mart to buy needed supplies. I can only imagine the scene in wal-mart. Apparently, three boys decided to use their own money to buy a couple of Amp drinks they were trying to drink at 11:00 pm! The sleepy father figure in Ryan promptly took all the amps away.

Here is our group. We had a few that didn't show at all and one who had been assigned to the wrong grade. All in all, I thought it was a great weekend. I think the kids did too. One boy wanted to know if he could come back home with us when church was over. One boy commented that he thought it would be cool to have a Disciple Now month instead of Disciple Now Weekend. I think the powers that be are very wise to keep it to one weekend, once a year. Sign me up for next year!