Elevate 2011 Part 1

I have decided to start a blog.  I was avoiding it because I typically am not very good with words.  I'm a numbers person.  However, I just got back from camp with some of the high school youth and I just had too much to share.  So, I'm starting now with telling my story about Elevate 2011 and then I'm sure I will be talking about my kids like crazy in a few days.

Monty, the youth director at Cornerstone, called me a few weeks ago and asked if I could be a leader on the high school trip to "camp".  I was excited, but wasn't sure I could leave my family for 6 whole days.  Luckily, the Lord worked it out.  We left bright and early Tues morning.  The charter bus that already had another church on it picked us up at 6:30 am! We had a long drive (14 hours!) up to Covenant College on Lookout Mountain.  I only knew one of the six youth from our church that went on the trip.  I sat next to Makenna (one of the girls I didn't know before hand) on the ride up.  We picked up another church just north of Orlando on our way up.
Before I left, Justin (my husband) made a comment along the lines of, "Too bad on this trip up north you won't be able to make it to Zaxby's".  So I was completely surprised and excited when we pulled into the Zaxby's parking lot for lunch.  Needless to say, it was DELICIOUS! I learned a new game on the bus called Mafia.  I'm hooked! I got to know some people from another church

We got to the campus around 9 pm.  Sam Reilly joined us.  She came to the camp with the church she has been going to while away at college, but decided to stick with our church for the week to help out as a leader. Getting into our room really brought back memories of college for me.  The bunk beds, the wooden dressers and desks, the girls running around the hallways.  However, there was a bathroom in the room (one up on Gardner Webb's dorms).  We had 5 girls and 4 beds so we grabbed an extra mattress and threw it on the ground.  Then the battle for bottom bunks began.  I threw in the "I'm an old 55 year old lady" card and they bought it, so I luckily got a bottom bunk! We thought our room was standard for the dorm and were completely happy with it.  That is, until we saw the other rooms.  They had room to walk around! They had outlets in the bathroom! We realized that we had the smallest room on the hall even before we added the extra mattress on the ground! We decided that it would just help us to bond more.  And it did! We got situated and headed down to chapel. 
A band named Hadriel was the worship team this week.  They were amazing! (more about that later) After worship our church got together for pizza and a little huddle time and then it was off to bed.



Wednesday started off with breakfast at 7:30, followed by a leader's meeting. I got to know a little bit more about how the camp worked and the heart of the people involved with putting it together.  From there we went to the morning chapel. Matt Casada was the morning speaker.  We learned about how we are in a waiting period after Eden, and before Eternity in heaven.  We have pain to deal with that we were not created to deal with.  Therefore, we have to lean on God!  We also got a taste of how awkward Matt was a child/teenager!  Hadriel introduced us to a few of their original songs. 
Then we went to our Interactive times.  Our group chose "Worship" with the band and another one on dealing with your parents.  We learned a lot about the band and their hearts.  It was a good time. 
After lunch we went on our first "Excursion" (aptly named due to the trip down the mountain in the charter bus).  Our group signed up to do some service work at a pregnancy clinic in Chatanooga called Choices.  We finally found it, got started doing some weeding and things outside and it started raining and lightning! Luckily, this provided us with some time to learn about the pregnancy clinic.  This was the first time I cried this week.....
To be continued...