The trip went well, but wow, I am sooooo tired! I updated our youth group website with pictures and a brief update each day while we were away.

All things considered, the trip went very well. Rather than explain everything here I’ll let you read the updates using the link above. On a personal note, it’s hard to imaging that 6 months worth of planning is over. I mean, Ryan and I started working on this trip a little after Christmas. It’s almost like I don’t remember what it’s like to not be thinking and planning this trip.

All the CREW students did very well. I had to re-focus their attention a couple times during the week, but as first-time counselors, being thrown to inner-city kids is a tough place to start. They all stood up to the challenege, though, and did very well. Next year we need to make sure we emphasize strict discipline for the first day or two even stronger than we did this year in order to make the days following less stressful, but it all worked out okay. We all learned how to rely on God’s strength to pull us through each tiring day. Being physcially tired isn’t so bad — being drained emotionally is what kills ya.

Several children made first-time decisions to accept Christ, which is always exciting, and even more rededicated their lives to pursing God at home. Our mission for the week was to love on these kids and to both examplify and communicate Christ’s love for them through our actions. I feel we accomplished that mission very well last week.

Right now I’m at the place where I find myself every year after directing this thing: do I do it again next year or decide that it’s too much time and energy? Right now I feel, “Yeah right, all that work, planning, and stress for only 1 week?!” but given some time I know I’ll forget about all that and will remember all the positive aspects that come from this week of camp for the Angel Tree kids. I know I’ll end up doing it again in 2006. ;-)

Posted on July 27, 2005