Club...It's not the meat of what we do

Last night I was driving home from club (our number for club was low....But we had a BLAST), and I was quickly reminded of all of the things that are happening outside of club. It's so easy to base my performance on how many kids come to Young Life club, but that wouldn't be accurate at all as to how God is using me and my team in the lives of kids in East Peoria.

We had training on Sunday as a whole area (so all of the leaders in all of the schools we are involved in) and we talked about Contact Work. Contact work is the meat of what we do in Young Life. It's going where kids are.... It's taking kids that we know out for ice cream... It's showing up to a HS football game... It's walking through the halls of the school. And I'm excited about our team as we move forward with this contact work piece. Being strategic in where we go, what we do, and how we go further in our relationships with kids.

Saturday night I had a wonderful opportunity. Last week the Pumpkin Festival was in the area (morton, IL is the pumpkin capitol of the world...so it's kind of a big deal). So I contacted a couple of kids to take them with me, and then they brought along a friend that I didn't know. We had so much fun together. On the main stage at the festival they had the dueling pianos...and we LOVED it. Singing along with them, people staring at us because of how much fun we were having, laughing like there was no tomorrow, being able to put our arms around each other and sway; each of these things reminded me why I do what I do.
Then... On the way home they were talking about a bon fire that was cancelled that they were going to go to. So conversation started to happen about what they were going to do now...So I had them over to my house to have our own little bon fire. As we sat around the fire I got to know Bre a little more (we had just met that night). The small talk started to dwindle down and I started to ask them questions about life. I thought to myself, 'I will do a disservice to these kids if we just have surface level conversation around this fire.' The first thing I asked them was their 'High' and 'Low' since the school year had started. They all quickly jumped to answer that 'Tonight was the best night we have had since school started.' I want to tell you that as a Young Life leader I was celebrating so much inside as they said that. And it was all because of a simple text to the girls about going to the pumpkin festival. And God did the rest.
Because of that contact work we were able to talk about their lows of the past few weeks as well; being able to be real with each other about drama with friends, boyfriends, pressures, and family.

So whether or not we have 10 kids at club or 40... I know that things like this are happening not just with myself but with other members of my team.... And that's why I do what I do.

Thanks for your support!! :-)