Faith and Friends

There is a girl who goes to youth group. She doesn't seem really loud, but she does have friends in the group. She's not someone I knew before two weeks ago. She isn't one of the girls who grew up going to the church, she just comes to youth group. Her older brother had gone to youth group when he was in middle school and high school because a friend had invited him and he told his sister about it so now she goes.

Last week I wrote about how I want to build relationships with the kids who go to youth group. I want to be a role model for them and I want to be a friend for them.

So this week I started working towards that goal. At the beginning of youth group the kids have free time and I saw this girl sitting by herself instead of playing soccer with some of the other kids so I went over to sit by her. We talked for a little bit and I got to know some more about her school and some of the projects she's working on for class.

It's super cool talking to some of the youth group kids because they are so much younger than me, but not only that, their experience in middle school is so different but yet so similar to my own experience. Some things they talk about I can relate to and remember from when I was in middle school, but other things go right over my head and I have no idea what they are talking about. It's definitely an interesting experience.

This week for Alpha our topic was all about faith. The video and questions brought about some really good conversations, I was with the middle school girls for small group time and there was one girl who kept amazing me with her answers. She seemed so mature in her answers it was so cool!

One of the questions after the video was asking us which character we would be if a relationship with God was the pool. The courage the girls had to tell us that they were just dipping their toes in or that they were the girl with the towel who was scared made me admire them so much. To be honest, when I was in middle school, I probably would have said what everyone else was saying, but these girls were not afraid to say where they were at in their faith.

Pool photo from Alpha "If a relationship with God was the pool, which person would you be?"

Going to youth group every Tuesday really fills my heart. I love spending time with very active young people and I love learning with them and leading them closer to Jesus Christ!

Thanks for reading,

Em

the time has come

So I'm finally home for my teaching practicum and I'm so excited!

Being home also means that I can (finally) start leading at youth group!

So Tuesday night I made the very familiar drive to my home church and prepared myself to jump back into the youth leading game. It was both awesome and a little weird being back. It was awesome because I love youth - especially middle schoolers - and I'm so happy to be back. It was a little weird because all of a sudden these kids who I have known since they were babies are now in middle school going to youth group every week.

The middle school youth group is called Transformers, because it is a place for middle schoolers to go to have their lives transformed by Jesus.

The schedule of the night is a bit different from when I used to help out at Transformers 4 years ago.

Transformers nights in a nutshell: The students come in, mingle and hang out for a while. Then they have a warm up game, we played human tic-tac-toe. After the game there is snack. Following snack we split up into small groups for devo time. We are currently doing Alpha which is super cool because I have always heard of Alpha but I have never done it before. After devo we head back into the gym for big group games - we played life size hungry hungry hippos this week. Finally the night is over and it's time to go home.

If you can't already tell I'm so excited to be back at youth group. Seeing young people on fire for Christ fills my heart and inspires me to draw closer to Him.

Since I have finally started my time at youth group I figure it would be a good idea to make a goal for my time here. My biggest goal for the next few weeks is to get to know the kids. I want to really build strong relationships with the kids at youth group, I want to be someone they can trust and come to if they have any problems or questions. So over the next few weeks I am really going to focus on talking to each of the kids. First I'll start by asking them how their day was or how school is going. I'm going to start small and build up from there.

I can't wait to tell you more next week.

Thanks for reading,
Em