Because Everything Needs A Name: Summer Twenty-Twelve part 4: Youth Conference

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left. I would hope that I could say 'I used everything you gave me.' " -Emma Bombeck

So I've been saving the quote above for a while now, never knowing when I should use it. I wanted it to be perfect, I love this quote and I want it to come true. So when it came time to write about Youth conference I decided that this would be as good a time as any to use it. After all, that's what everyone goes there expecting, right? I'm gonna go and get SUPER close to God, make some big decision and live a super Christian life. That's great perfect even, the only problem is 99% of us don't actually stick to those decisions, and break those promises a month after youth conference. So this year that's what it was focused on, don't make a promise just because you are at a conference listening to preachers all day long. "Get in the boat" they said. You can't stand with one foot on shore and the other on land, it just doesn't work. My favorite preacher preached Kenny Baldwin, He sings and he can preach the fire out of anything, he's amazing. Even though all of the preaching was amazing and all the skits were just as funny as ever, the free time and day at the college was the best, getting to hang out with whoever you wanted to. Listening to the music competitions it was a ton of fun!

This year Julia, Jillian and Jackie sang in the competition, they did amazing, then I also sang a song with them. We were SO nervous Julia was freaking out! But we made it through and we did really well.

Every year we go to the Christian College Hyles Anderson, and that is where we spend the second day, thats

where all the fun stuff happens, and every year there is a huge fire work display, they do them over a pond and they are BEAUTIFUL I love them.

The Last night, they did something called white out. Everyone was given a white T-shirt. The front of it said I have decided, and the back said to follow Jesus. So we all put our T-shirts on and sat waiting to see what this white out was. As everyone got their shirts the room really did get more and more white, then they handed us a pen that had an orange light on it, all of a sudden the lights went down and the room was BLACK, "now turn your lights on," they said, the whole room all of a sudden had little oragne lights lighting up everywhere one by one until all of them had been lit. these were our "candles" We are supposed to be lights of the world. The meaning stuck, as we all starred quietly at the little glowing dots are jaws dropped at the beauty and meaning that it all had. It was another amazing moment in youth conference history.

making her "julia" face on
the way home

As much fun as the conference is, and as much as we all love every minute of it, the car rides to and from were CRAZY! at night camera flashes would light up the entire car as everyone tried to cram into the camera view. We had a 15 passenger van and WAY more than fifteen passengers, on the way to the college I was actually sitting on the cooler that was in between the front seats, the air didn't work, or at least if it did there were too many people to make any difference, we sweated and complained because it was so hot, but still we all had an Amazing time. The absolute best part I'd have to say though was that night when we go back to the Hotel. We got five rooms, 4 for the girls and one for the guys, so every night we were all always running back and forth playing games and being as crazy as you can imagine. The last night we got back and there was 1 minute until the pool closed, we were going to jump in, in our clothes, we RAN through the doors down the hallway hoping that we would make it in time! As we were about to cross through the gate and lunge into the water a manager came out of almost nowhere.. "I'm closing the pool he said. We stopped.
"we will be 2 minutes, we just want to jump in and out," I said.
"no Pool's closed." I pleaded again.
"We will be TEN SECONDS. PLEASE! "
"I'm sorry, I'm closing the pool.."
Defeated we walked down the hall and towards the elevator that would take us to our rooms...
"if only we hadn't stopped at the last red light..."

Once we were upstairs our hyperness didn't go away. Rachel and I turned into ninja spies, running down the hall way slamming against walls hiding from the non-existent people. We were INSANE. I can't even describe to you the crazy stuff we did. When we had calmed down enough we all sat in the hall way and were talking, all of a sudden we see lightening come through the window next to us and heard the rain start pouring down outside. Rachel and I looked at each other and both jumped up, down the stairs we ran, we stopped at the entrance debating whether we really wanted to do it. We went with yes we ran outside into the storm, yelling and dancing and laughing so hard we didn't even know what to do with ourselves. We splashed in puddles and screamed at the thunder and lightening. We came back in soaking wet. the night manager just looked at us and shook her head laughing as we went back to our rooms.
I've been to three youth conferecnes now and every year they just get better,
you meet better people you have a more amazing experience and no
matter what they say, youth conference NEVER gets old!
They preaching amazing, God's hand over it all ever more amazing, and the memories that have been made just as amazing as everything else (I really need to find a different word for amazing)

Julia, Rachel and I

This is one of those times of the year that I look forward to, counting down the days, figuring out what to wear and getting ready for the best week of my life!