Ok, I'm trying to psyche myself up to write this post. The creative juices are flowing sluggishly through my veins like maple syrup as it drips out of a tapped tree... In other words, I've got a bad case of writers block, so forgive me if this post is dry and uninteresting. 😂
We left for YBC Sunday afternoon. We took two cars since there were too many of us to fit in a minivan. Jason didn't have his drivers license yet, so Leon gave me written permission to be his "guardian", or whatever you call it. His "written permission" paper was hysterical!
Josh's car was packed!
😉
That evening, we got settled in at our host family's house. There were eight of us girls sleeping in this room in the basement. It was interesting getting everyone through the bathroom mornings and evenings! We stayed with Derald and Martha Gingerich. In our opinion, this is the best place to stay. Sorry, everybody else! 😂
After lunch...
The messages were very good this year! Various speakers were scheduled for the morning sessions. Mark Miller had the afternoon slot. His messages were so challenging. He had a way of presenting hard-to-talk-about subjects in a way that was easy to listen to. There were some times he was so funny that we could hardly contain ourselves! Dale Heist spoke in the evenings. His subject was "Surrender." I don't think there was any message this year that didn't speak to me in some way.
Yep, that's me.
This girls' discussion group got to be in the couch room! Our group was so jealous!
This is the group I was in. I really enjoyed group discussion this year. A lot of interesting topics were brought up and discussed at length.
Boys' group discussion
The other boy's group
Lunchtime again!
We were ecstatic that our youth group got to have a group picture all to ourselves this year! There's finally enough of us!
Chorus practice definitely isn't my favorite, but I still enjoy it.
It's always so much fun when we do something out of the ordinary for chorus, like the entire choir lining the walls to sing the "Easter Hallelujah" or something.
Wednesday night is our free night! There are no evening services, so we get to go back to our host family's house and just relax. Kellers were invited over for supper, so that made the evening more fun! We played a Bible dictionary game for awhile. Our team ended up winning, only because we had Taylor! 😂
Dawn and Twila Zimmerman could play guitar and Sarah played violin. They serenaded us quite a few times over the week.
This is my prayer group... er, wait, Lydia is missing! Somehow when we gathered for our picture, nobody noticed that Lydia Tice was missing!
Here's the whole group! L-R; me, Charity Green, Leah Rudolph, Lydia Tice, Kaitlyn Aumen, Emily Newswanger, Hannah Brubaker.
These girls made prayer and sharing my favorite part of each day. They contributed so much with questions, topics to discuss, and different view points. You girls were amazing! Thank you!
Funny story... We gathered for prayer and sharing one afternoon (I can't remember which day it was). I'd been struggling with extreme fatigue all week due to about two weeks worth of not sleeping well so I'd been having a hard time remembering things and keeping my mind clear. I was ready and raring to go with lots of ideas for discussion on my mind that day, though! As I talked, the girl kept giving half-hearted answers and talk just kept petering out. Finally, I asked them if they were tired. All of them said they were extremely tired. I thought, hey, why not let them take a nap..? We weren't getting anywhere, so, I shut the light out and we all rested. Some of the girls actually did fall asleep. I didn't really think anything about it after that, but as the day wore on, different people came up to me and were like, "That was such a good idea!" "You should talk to my prayer group leader..." A couple people asked me, "Did you hear about the prayer group that took a nap?" Um, ya, I did... I also heard that certain young boy students weren't too pleased with me. Oops. I hadn't meant to cause a stir like that! Live and learn, I guess. 😋 Actually, I'd do it again if I was in the same situation. 😀
KK's prayer group...
This sign greeted all the thirsty people on Friday night...
Our group sang two songs for the sharing time on Saturday. We did, Gentle Holy Spirit and Father, in Thy Mysterious Presence. Unfortunately, the video I have of us singing at church is too long to put on here.
The amazing group that we stayed with!
Dale Heisy, the evening speaker, and his wife came over to Gingerichs' for breakfast on Saturday morning. We really enjoyed visiting with them in a not as formal setting.
This prayer group shared a couple songs... Elaine Hanson, the girl sharing in the picture, was one of those that were born again that week.
There were two others that were born again that week- Jake Clark and Jason. So exciting!!!
Two young mens' prayer groups sang together.
Beachy household...
These two prayer groups collaborated on sharing some songs.
Later that evening, some played knock out while others played four square.
Watching the game of knock out...
Someone set it up as six square, but the squares were tiny! It made the game rather interesting...
The Face Off
When it was time to go in, we played elimination four square. Susie and Meredith were the last two standing!
My photographer... 😶
Signing song books...
We had a hymn sing later that evening. A rather tired one... I was singing along, when, I noticed that someone was singing off. I suddenly realized that it was meself. Whoops. I decided it was time for bed about that time.
Susie brought along this back vibrator thing. It felt really weird, but strangely good!
My place of abode
Martha asked me to bring an air mattress along for me to sleep on. We have several, and I knew one of them leaked badly, of course, I didn't know which one that was. You guessed it, I brought the leaky one along. Long story short, I ended up on the loveseat. Trust me, a loveseat is way more comfortable than a flat air mattress on a concrete floor!
Elarie sent me these. They were so cute I had to share them!
Elarie stayed with Kels during Bible School to help her out while Ry was at the church all week as the moderator.
We left Sunday morning for home. Nate and Virginia had been at our house all week and were leaving that following Tuesday for Haiti. We wanted to be home ASAP to get as much visiting in as we could. Since we left early, we had to miss the last day of Bible School. That was sad, but, we wanted to see Nate and Gin more!
We got home in time for lunch with everybody. Gram and Aunt Carol were there too, so it was quite the houseful!
Someone suggested a trip to the creek down the road where we'd filmed some scenes for our movie. It felt so good to tramp around after sitting all week at Bible School!
I didn't have any boots, so Sam loaned me his old cowboy boots. 😜
Our back porch was extremely messy! Nate and Gin had ordered a bunch of stuff to take back to Haiti with them so there were piles of empty boxes. Oh, yes, and lots of boots and shoes!
Silly Opal
Four square with family is the best!
