So we’re loaded and actually leave on time. 9 students. 4 leaders. Good ratio for investment. We spent lots of one on one time with students. Over the weekend we camped, went whitewater rafting and rock-climbing.

Rock-climbing was amazing. It’s one of my favorite things to do. For something that really pushes students out of their comfort zone, this is the thing to do. Most of the kids we work with are never pushed to be more. And that point was so evident on the rock. You’d see them climb half way up, get frustrated or scared and try to quit. But ‘ah ha!’ this time was different. I’ve spend enough time with all of them to know where their limits are. So I instructed them to not let the kids down if there was any doubt that the could keep going.

It happened over and over. They’d start going and want to quit. But then something happened… they weren’t allowed to. Once they realized the only way they were getting down was going up to the top, their demeanor changed. They hit adversity and kept going. Every time we saw it, they pushed past where they thought they could go. They accomplished more than they thought was possible. They began to believe in themselves.

After a morning of victory, they were a different group in the afternoon. More confident. More assured. They approached every climb differently. It is amazing what what kids can do when they actually believe in themselves.

This has been one of the great hurdles of sharing Christ with them. They balk at challenge. Accepting Christ seems easy. Following Him is a different story. Accepting and following is a HUGE challenge. It’s so big, it’s beyond them. Living for Christ is living outside ourselves. And for a moment in time, these student got to step out and feel what it is like to live beyond what they thought was possible.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 6:30 am and is filed under Blogroll, Church, Jesus, Uncategorized, christ, evangelism, general, rock climbing, rockclimbing, share christ, students, teens, trip, whitewater rafting, yd, youth, youth dynamics, youth ministry.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.