Posts Tagged ‘youths’

This morning started with a SMS that told me a 17 year old had died. It is so sad. And the youths, the close friends and the not so close friends, have been gathered trying to face this by being together. I’ve joined them, as well, for a few hours, and we are meeting up again tomorrow.

It’s not easy grasping death when you are 17 and full of future and possibilities. It’s not easy grasping when you are 38 either, but by then you know a bit more about life and have a few more life lessons learned.

I’m so glad lots of helping hands are involved, though, and for not standing in this alone (and neither are the family or the youths) – I guess I’ll be talking with the family as well tomorrow, starting to prepare for the funeral next week.

If you pray, please pray for us all. This is going to be a hard week for many in our neighborhood and especially hard for the close family and friends.

Today we took the youth club out to the local ski trek (a small one) and gathered quite a few youths with the love of alpine skiing and snow boarding. After a little more than an hour we tried to get all of the youths together by the bonfire, we grilled some hot dogs and wanted them all to be there for the devotion. We used almost half an hour to get everyone (more or less) to stand still and not go for the just-one-more-down-hill-while-the-others-gathered tour…. In the end I counted 25 people there, all together, and then it was time for one of the young girls to have the devotion.It must have been so scary, but she jumped into it. A bit low voiced at the beginning; I could see the youths concentration and trying to catch her words, but after a bit all of us heard quite well.

She told about her self being an artist, a painter, and how she thought about her creations. Even when she had finished a painting she sometimes had to add a bit or change some, maybe as long as a year later, because she wanted it to be just like she wanted it to be and she cared about it. She put so much of her self into the paintings. Then she reminded us to look at each other, us self and the nature around us to see the beauty of it all. She told how God made it and made it with great love and care -  just like an artist. He put something of his in the creation – and sometimes he too wants to add a bit or change some – just to make it better, just because he cares – just because he loves us.

My day so far had been rather blah, but standing right there I felt how much doing what I do means to me. I want to go out with the good news about Jesus to the youths, I want to tell them they are loved and I want to stand there by their side while they find their words and their way in life – with Christ by their side. I just pray for strength and staying power. Sometimes it’s an un-thankful job to work with youths, but it is so so so so important!! I needed this reminder today.

Edit: now I only have 1 problem…. kind off

I’m planning a big Confirmant-year opening this weekend. So far I think there is 16 youths that have joined in. This weekend we are going to get to know each other and their parents/family is also invited to a bit of it. Hopefully the weather will hold so we can barbecue by the church as planned

There is, at this point, only two one problems:

1. I can’t find any adults that wants to spend the night with us, I don’t know of anybody to ask either. And even though the youths might be nice and all, I really would want us to be 2 adult present.
2. There is, off course, a soccer cup this weekend and many of the youths would rather be there.

Now I’m tossing and turning to find a way to make this weekend happen. Or else we might have to cansel the sleeping over part, and I so don’t want that! This year I plan to have a course for the “old” confirmants to teach them how to be a camp leader, so that might help in the long term run of things. But in the short term there is so few to choose from!

These apples remind me of taking time to let things grow……

Right now I’m home doing a bit of house keeping, soon I’ll head down to the office for a short while to send some mail and try to figure out how to make a email newspaper. Please help me if you know how!