A history of...

i don't know that we'll get pictures up this evening (okay, morning as i write this), becuase it has been a looooong day for us; an amazing day, to be sure...but a long one.

andy and i started this morning with another running club "meeting", and we even added a few more member this morning. it has truly been a great way to start each day; both the excercise and some concentrated time with a few of our youth have been invogorating.

we started the conference this morning with our first trip to LAB! in lab, students (and leaders) are divided up into groups of about 10 (with people they don't know), and given the opportunity to work through the things that are being talked about in Big Room. it is a chance to be in a situation that invites honesty and transparency as students are sitting with a group of people who have no prior knowledge or opinion of who they are...our hope is to be able to continue this practice of transparency and honest self-reflection in our small groups this school year.

after another stellar showing by ralph leonard (meal doctor), with help from dan krontz (an eye doctor), of subs on the lawn across from the convention center; we all headed back in for a round of 'optional seminars.' students went to hear pastor francis chan speak as well as shaine claiborne and others...youth specialties truly puts a great deal of thought and prayer into these folks they ask to present the Story of God to our youth.

following dinner at espn zone, we headed once more to the convention center for our 2nd Big Room where we continued (or rather, finished) the journey through the old testament. what an experience to be taken on an intensive journey through the story of the faithfulness of a loving God to a people who, though called and set apart for a great purpose, continually chose a path that was their own...what a challenge to hear of the remnant or the few from each generation and each part of the story of these, God's chosen people, who refused to give in to laziness, and continued to worship, continued to hope, continued to wait expectantly for the promised Messiah...have we become lazy, or are we throwing off the attitude of our generation, wanting to be in those few who are counted faithful to telling the story of a loving and faithful God?

tomorrow looks to be a big day as we get to hear about this resuce that had been promised for thousands of years...

vern

Day Two!

Hello One & All!

Hope you are all doing well! We love and you and miss you and take comfort in the fact that you are taking care of Boone in our abscence.

Just wanted to give you guys a quick update and sketch of what our day looked like today. Started off strong bright and early at 7 AM with a jog around downtown DC and all-around the National Mall for a group of 8 known as "The Running Club." Running in Boone is definitely scenic and quite the experience but running through downtown DC seeing the monuments is something else. It was definitely a good way to start the day.

Today can be summed up into 2 parts. After breakfast of Poptarts, bagels, Starbucks, and the likes we made our way down to the Mall to start our half-day of DC. After some serious game-planning and strategizing we all set out to our various points of interest. Many of us went to the National Archives to see our Nation's founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. A number of others went to get tickets to the Holocaust Museum. Some went to the National Art Gallery and many others went to do the token "DC Monument Tour." We all took a lunch break and then were back at it for a few more hours before meeting up at 2:15 to head to Registration and Orientation for the conference.

I must mention that our dinner spot tonight was a new place for our DC trip called California Tortilla. Many props go to the staff at California Tortilla. They got all 63 of us fed in under 30 minutes which is no small feat at all.

After dinner we made our way to the Convention Center to our first session of DCLA 2009. Tonight was an introduction of what they call "Big Room" which is worship, teaching, skits, hip-hop presentations of the gospel, musical performances, and whatever else you can imagine. It is quite the experience and something else to behold. We captured a lot of photographs and video footage so hopefully sometime soon we will be able to relate the experience to you through video and photo. The thing that I am probably most excited about is the theme of the weekend. The sfocus and theme of the whole conference is God's Story and the Big Rooms go about training students in that story by walking chronilogically through the whole Bible over the course of our time together. I wa skeptical at first but we have already moved through Genesis all the way to the book of Joshua. Serious work. Fast pace, but presented in a way that is relatable on every level to where students are and how they learn and experience information. The whole "Big Room" experience lasted 2.5 hours but designed to be short-bursts and sections catering to the attention span of your teenager and us leaders as well. To hear the speakers tell the story of God's love and his work to redeem his people back to him is something that definitely stirs the heart of youth who feel wayward and pulled in so many different directions in their lives.

On a side note A very own Robert Martin, former youth leader, current Appalachian Trail through-hiker, met up with us today so there was great rejoicing in reunions all around.

check back in tomorrow to see how our first "Labs" go and what the day holds for BUMC Youth Ministries.

Grace & Peace,

Andy

We have ARRIVED!

after taking one of the strangest routes i have ever taken to get to washington dc, we arrived at our hotel at about 4:30pm leaving us only 45 minutes to check into 20 rooms, have youth load luggage into their rooms and make it 3 blocks to Hard Rock Cafe by 5:15 for our dinner reservations...we made it to Hard Rock at 5:17pm! the impossible is already being made possible.

after dinner we walked down to the Mall near the Washington Monument for our 'lay down the law' meeting; and then gave everyone a bit of time to do some sight seeing. time was well spent, to be sure.

here are some thoughts from some of our leadership team:

our youth were treated to the "scenic tour" from Boone to Virginia... AND we discovered that none of our youth get car sick!!

Beautiful night in DC...low humidity...great walking weather and many of us got to see a few of the monuments.

The Krontz's Toyota had the quickest pit stop on record. While battling DC traffic and exuberant youth, we were able to stop, use the facilities, and back on the road in three minutes. whoa

a few pictures thus far:

tomorrow is our sight seeing day...then we start with our first "Big Room" for DCLA tomorrow evening! We could not be more excited! We can't wait to see the ways in which the Lord chooses to reveal Himself and make His heart for us known! Thank you for your prayers.

Until later...

6 days and counting...

we are currently in the midst of pulling everything together for this Ministry's 5th trip to Washington, DC for the conference known as DCLA (formerly a Youth For Christ event; Youth Specialties stepped in as a partner in 2006, and has taken the reigns for this year's event).

Updates will be made between now and our departure with a bit of history from our past years as well as updates for this year's trip.

We will be updating each evening while we are on our trip (July 9th-13th).