Middle School D-Now

God put an amazing opportunity in my lap this past week. One of the leaders for our Middle School D-Now (at church) got sick and they needed a replacement. After getting a facebook message late Wed. night from my friend Katie C (who had heard from the youth pastor) and responding with a "Sure I'll do it." I never heard anything. Then Thursday around 2:15, I got a call from the Associate Youth Pastor at Whitesburg saying he had run into my friend Katy F and she had suggested me as the replacement. At this point I was like "Ok God, I get it." Miraculously, my schedule was free this weekend. The only complication was that I had less than 24 hours to look over the material. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a jam packed schedule as it is. In that 24 hours, I had a dr's appt, small groups and I had to work 8 hours then head straight over to my host family's house. God was going to have to work through my lack of preparation.
I met my host family on Friday- The Yates. They were awesome. We had so much in common it almost got freaky. We had lived in Orlando at the same time, moved to Huntsville the same year, went to CCA, etc... We even discovered that Mr. Yates sits two rows behind me in the balcony every Sunday. I ended up with 9 amazing girls. 6 of which are exactly like April Johnson (and anyone who knows her understands what that means) and the other 3 were stark opposite- quiet and serious. They grilled me the moment they arrived. The first session they had a hard time concentrating, but then all of the sudden it was like they had questions and wanted to have a serious discussion about the Holy Spirit and Heaven vs. Hell. It lasted 6 hours! It was 2 am before we finished! We got up and had another session where the girls wrote the sin that was dragging them down on a piece of paper and then burned it. After that, it was time for "The Amazing Race", where we got clues to go all over Huntsville- starting at the Recycling Center and ending at the Space and Rocket Center. We spent 2 hours goofing off at the Space and Rocket Center. I rode Space Shot 4 times. It wasn't till after we left that I realized my stomach couldn't take it anymore. I never threw up, but I felt terrible. I'm too old. That night we had a group session at the church with amazing worship and a challenge to take Huntsville for Christ. The girls were broken. We spent that evening discussing how they felt about it. Then I had one on ones with each of them. We had a blast, but they learned something too. I think I only got 6 hours of sleep the whole weekend, but it was so worth it. I think every teenager should go through D-Now. I am so thankful that God gave me the opportunity to work with them.