Last night was a pretty good night at The Rock. Our message was from Mark 4:35-41 where Jesus calms the storm and we acted it out (as usual). :-) We also played "4 on the couch" for a half hour and it was super fun (once we got the hang of it). Nathan, Abby, Caitlin, Jerry, Josh, Ella, Amanda, Justin, and Mari came. I picked up and dropped off Mari which was fine, but I need a woman to do it. I broke the rule of "no one-on-one guy/girl stuff." I did get to talk to her about paying attention, though, and how I think she can be awesome if she listens and applies it to her life. I also kind of exploded on all of them for the constant fighting, complaining, negativity, etc. I think they got it and they were really good after I did that. Overall, a great night. I really think we grew some last night. Also, Saturday we're going to decorate the church. Hopefully that'll be a blast!

I did quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done in regards to youth ministry on Sunday morning. Half way through Sunday school a boy came in and sat down making some comment like, "Now I'm in the special class." Well, I thought it was a woman in our churches son who is not in jr. high so I asked him to go to the correct class. He said, "This IS my class." "No it isn't, please go." So he goes and my other youth go, "THAT'S BEN!" Ben is a 6th grader I haven't seen in well over 2 months and he looks just like David. I was dumbfounded and ran after him and invited him back. Who knows, maybe KICKING HIM OUT OF THE GROUP will stick with him and it'll be a funny story for years to come. Here's hoping!

After youth group I dropped by the Braatz's and hungout with Nathan and Abby. It was awesome. They told me I say "awesome" and "totally" all the time. hehe It was great to have a heart-to-heart with them and get their input as well as give mine. It was a huge stepping stone, I think. Now, to beat Nathan at Playstation... :-)

Zacchaeus was a little man who did everything he could to put himself in a position to see/meet Jesus. That was our lesson last night at The Rock. There were 6 kids there (Caitlin and Cory, Nathan and Abby, Amanda, and Mari) which was nice but less than expected. The Lindbergs were gone because (I'm assuming this is why) one of their grandma's friends is dying in the hospital. Not sure where Justin was. We played a couple games ("Find It" - verses in the Bible, "Crayon Drop" where we stood in the balcony and dropped the best of 5 Crayons in a bucket) and then went over Zacchaeus's story. I thought the night went really well. They are not very unified yet and that concerns me, but we're working on it. Overall, a fun and productive night.