Our Padre, Which Art In Heaven...

Yes, we survived. Beautifully.

When Heather and the boys and I arrived on Sunday evening, we hit the beach even before we were completely settled in our condo. Why? The tropical storm off the coast of Florida was producing 12-14 foot waves outside our door. Darien and I were eager to hop on the boogie boards and take on the Lady of the Surf. She was awesome.

We checked in all our rooms for the week, made some changes in room assignments, and the students and sponsors arrived around 4:30 Monday afternoon. We checked out at 8:30 on Friday morning. In between, we spent some quality time with the Maker. We were blessed to have Progeny lead our worship. They were outstanding! Thanks Ben, Rachel, Dustin, and 'little Toulson'! The speaker was pretty mediocre, but our small groups were awesome. We had some really great times discovering the Word together.

We even had a group skip recreation (with their counselor) so they could have more time in the Scripture discussing some personal issues. Good times.

For me, the highlight was watching our students worship in the evening. They were marvelous. And, yes, you can't always judge the disposition of the heart in worship by external expressions... but what I noticed brought me to tears. As our group corporately sat in Abba-Daddy's lap and told him we loved Him, we needed Him, and we're sorry for our unfaithfulness, I began to notice some maturity in our freshmen that I hadn't noticed before. There was dedication in our sophmore and junior classes that seemed to grow more resolute. And I watched as our seniors both celebrated and grieved that this was their last Beach Break as a student. They are all amazing.

Thank you to the adults who gave up a week of their lives to invest in our students. These young men and women of the faith will never be the same because of your gift. Remember that.

Thank you to all the parents who trusted our ministry with your precious son or daughter for a week in the Son. If you'd like to come along next time, we'd love to have you experience it side-by-side with your teenager.

Thanks for all your prayers (especially you, Jimmie...you are now officially on my white list again. :) ).

I know there's much to blog about, but today is the first day of VBS... I'll be blogging regularly again tomorrow.

Gracias a Dios!