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​On Monday night, I got be a part of a club and it was awesome. Our area combined with all of the other areas in Collin County to throw the most fun club with 500 of our new friends. For the first time in a while, I wasn’t the person giving the talk, leading games or running sound.  I was right there next to kids, pressed up against the stage and experiencing club with them. We screamed our lungs out and danced so hard that I was truly sore the next day. I loved experiencing something new with them and linking arms with some of my dearest friends.
 
That club was so special to me because, in this semester of Young Life, we have experienced really hard, difficult things. The hardest one was a car accident that took the lives of two girls from Shepton and critically injuring a third. The third is a rockstar of a girl named Kendall. Kendall and I went to Frontier Ranch together and I have experienced some great adventures with her and her sister Kaylyn. The one word that I can use to describe the swirl of emotions that I’ve felt for weeks on end is: sad. I was sad for the families, the friends and the Plano community. Even now, my heart continues to break as we mourn, and pray and support one another.
 
In the weeks following the accident, Kendall has made great strides in her recovery.
 
The days following the funeral were filled with one continual question from students and friends of the girls: Why? Thankfully, the Lord has given me a platform to address questions, fears and doubts and share the truth of God’s word. The Monday after the accident, I stood on stage at Club and explained that I didn’t know why, but I do know that there is more to the story. There is more of something that we cannot see.
 
We turned to scripture and talked about how Jesus met Mary and Martha both in their anger towards him and in their sadness towards their brother’s death. You see, Jesus was friends with their brother, Lazarus. So, when he found out he was sick and chose to stay where he was, the sisters were confused. When Lazarus died and Jesus wasn’t there, they were angry. They knew the power Jesus had; they knew that if he had come, he could have saved him. When Jesus did show up, Martha yelled out in anger and Mary broke down in tears. How did Jesus respond to their emotional responses? With Martha in her anger, he talked her through it and explained His purpose. With Mary in her sadness, He wept with her. All along, he knew there was more to the story. Jesus knew that they would learn to trust him in a new way through their anger and their sadness. They needed to see that Jesus was, indeed, all powerful, that he was for them and that he cared deeply about them. Jesus ultimately offers salvation in a different way: he miraculously raises Lazarus from physical and spiritual death. Why was it this way? Ultimately, God was glorified and Mary and Martha and those people learned a deeper love and a deeper understanding of who God is. It doesn’t make it easier, but it does help us understand that God is for us and with us.
 
I still don’t know why this accident happened. I still don’t know why it had to be this way. What I can tell you is that in the weeks following the accident, my Young Life friends have come to a deeper understanding of who God is. They have come to know the depth of His love, they have come to ask some of the hardest questions, and they have been well acquainted with grief and hurt. They have watched and experienced God in a way that has moved and transformed them, and they have been on their knees pleading for Kendall. I don’t know why it had to be this horrific, but I do know God has more to the story. I do know that there is something we cannot see and in the midst of it all He will meet us, just as he did for Mary and Martha. In this heart breaking semester, I have had a front row seat to watch him work in the dirty and messy parts of life and it has been one of the most beautiful things.
 
On Monday night, I danced and screamed and sang with my friends and remembered this is why we do Young Life. When life gets really, really hard, we get to enter into the muck and, for 2 hours on Monday nights, we get to scream at the top of our lungs. So, I’ll keep planning club, and figuring out the sound board that I know nothing about and getting rejected from lunch tables at the school because I’m that awkward twenty-seven year old that they don’t understand. This is worth it. When the battle is raging and the hard days are coming, I get to root myself in the grace of Christ and invite them into a relationship with Jesus Christ. 

We hope you had the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of New Years! This December, we took a crew of juniors and seniors to Crooked Creek Ranch for our annual Young Life Ski Trip and IT. WAS. AWESOME. If we had to rate it on beautiful weather, amount of laughter, inches of powder, awesomeness of Club or time with friends it was definitely a 10/10. Some of us (me included) learned how to ski and experienced scary, yet courageous moments facing our first greens. Others dominated black diamonds and terrain parks, and a few simply enjoyed being in the snow and enjoying time with friends. All of us got to head back to what can only be compared to Narnia to have Young Life Club every night. 

There is something special about getting away to a new, beautiful place and experiencing adventure with your friends. I don't think it was just going skiing or just being at a Young Life Camp that made Ski Trip what it was. It was the community and the gift of doing life together combined with learning more and more of who Jesus is every single day. When Jesus walked with his disciples, he referred to so many things around him to explain the Kingdom of Heaven, our need for a Savior and the Love of God. From birds to coins to sheep to a Prodigal Son, he used parables and analogies to teach us. On Ski Trip, instead of birds and coins, we had a snow capped mountain that gave us many analogies of what it looked like to follow Jesus. We had to learn to trust our instructors, be patient with beginners, not give up when we were only half-way down, be content with our limits, bring darkness to light, and have thankful hearts to be in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Following JesusLike I said, it was awesome!

Check out the video below to see Ski Trip from a West Plano girl's perspective :)

As I think back over the past three months of Young Life, they have been jam packed, filled with activities, adventures, and lots of conversations.  This semester has been marked by the usual fall happenings of lunches, club, campaigners, pep rallies, volleyball games, football games, conversations over coffee, two different weekend camp trips, a night in cowboy’s stadium for our middle school friends, and so much more.

From the outside looking in this semester has been filled with smiles and laughter that fill rooms across Plano on most every night of the week, but a deeper look would reveal sweet and tender relationships between kids and their leaders that are filled with conversations in which kids share life's joys, celebrations, hurt, loss, and pains. 
 
I’m prone to want to fix things, to save others from their own situations, but as young life leaders we’re called to something different.  We're called to  share life with kids, to love them in the midst of their brokenness, to celebrate their joys, to suffer in their sorrows, and to walk along side them no matter what life brings.  Therefore the pain that life brings in kids lives, is impossible to ignore.
 
As we’re entering into the holiday season, I’m reminded that there is hope.  That all the loss, pain, and hurt kids experience, is overshadowed by the life and light that Christ offers and provides.  In John 8:12 it says, “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  This is my hope our high school and middle school friends in Plano.  That they will know and live in the light that Christ provides and that even in the midst of pain and hurt, there is hope!

2 weeks ago today we arrived back in Plano from Frontier Ranch! It may have been a day early, but let me assure you, we got to have the BEST WEEK of our lives! The days were full and went by fast, days full of adventure and laughter and so much fun. We dressed up like Carrots and (Frontier) Ranch, rappelled off the side of a cliff, made new friends and learned a lot about who Jesus is. We say that it's the best week ever because it really, really is. 


Young Life camp was one week of the summer where the weather was beautiful every day, where we ate dinner around a round table with good friends every night, where laughter was genuine and deep and ongoing, where adventure waited around the corner, where we felt safe and heard and loved. Young Life camp was THE BEST WEEK OF OUR LIVES! 


Just because we're not in the mountains anymore, doesn't mean the adventure has to stop! Since we've been back we've had Summer Campaigners and Camp Follow-up making the awesomeness of Camp continue. We've gone bowling, went to THE Thunderbird Roller Rink, treated ourselves to Bahama Bucks and sand volleyball! Up next... we leave for another week at Frontier Ranch next weekend!