Updates...
Monday through Thursday I took our Junior High Youth Group to the Mt. Hood area in Oregon for a week of ropes challenges, rock climbing, white water rafting, and camping.
The road to Mt. Hood:
Well, I didn't reach the summit of Mt. Hood or anything, but I did make it up this little rock face a couple of times...
I was glad when I reached the top:
Wednesday, we rafted the Deschuttes River - basically in the deserts of Oregon. This is the river valley (the river is below the hill in the foreground).
Joe, Kristin, and I brought 11 students from our church. It was such a sweet week of hanging out with the kids, spending extra time with them, seeing their personalities come through, seeing them face some challenges, and seeing/hearing them think and talk about their faith. Good growth happened. I think I needed a bit of a boost of motivation for the week-to-week of youth ministry, and I got it. Here is us with the Youth Dynamics staff just before heading home on Thursday:
A few weeks ago (July 14 - 20) we did our 2nd Music and Drama Camp at Olympia CRC. It was another one of the big weeks on my calendar, with months of preparations... It went really great though. We had 50 kids in the church Monday - Friday and for our performance of a play on Sunday during the services. Basically we spend Monday - Friday playing games, doing skits, singing to high-energy worship songs, learning lines, learning blocking, practicing for the play... and then Sunday we perform it for the church, friends and family. It was a ton of work and pretty exhausting, but we had so many volunteers who made it a lot easier on me. 
The steep go of it is well worth it when you see the summit view:
We scrambled around at the summit for about an hour.
On the return trip we chose a harder way down than the trail:
We kicked it around Olympia Friday, Saturday, and Sunday because the weather wasn't so great... but Monday we made a day trip to Oregon to Cannon Beach (which is an incredible place) and Portland in the evening. A long day, but lots of good times. 
Low clouds rolling over the rocky coast:
Well, I didn't reach the summit of Mt. Hood or anything, but I did make it up this little rock face a couple of times...
Wednesday, we rafted the Deschuttes River - basically in the deserts of Oregon. This is the river valley (the river is below the hill in the foreground).
Joe, Kristin, and I brought 11 students from our church. It was such a sweet week of hanging out with the kids, spending extra time with them, seeing their personalities come through, seeing them face some challenges, and seeing/hearing them think and talk about their faith. Good growth happened. I think I needed a bit of a boost of motivation for the week-to-week of youth ministry, and I got it. Here is us with the Youth Dynamics staff just before heading home on Thursday:
A few weeks ago (July 14 - 20) we did our 2nd Music and Drama Camp at Olympia CRC. It was another one of the big weeks on my calendar, with months of preparations... It went really great though. We had 50 kids in the church Monday - Friday and for our performance of a play on Sunday during the services. Basically we spend Monday - Friday playing games, doing skits, singing to high-energy worship songs, learning lines, learning blocking, practicing for the play... and then Sunday we perform it for the church, friends and family. It was a ton of work and pretty exhausting, but we had so many volunteers who made it a lot easier on me. 
