Two For One Wells: DNOW...and Later...

Guilty as charged. I haven't blogged in a loooong time. I was even reprimanded by a co-worker. Life has still been top speed, but I have just as much time in the day as other people who are better bloggers, so I'd better stop complaining. ; )

So back up the timeline 3 weeks to Disciple Now weekend. If you've never heard of DNOW, it's a weekend sponsored by the church for youth to sleepover at a host home, stay up all night, compete in disgusting relay races (such as eating a pie with your hands behind your back), rock out to loud Christian bands and most importantly, listen to an awesome speaker talk about Christ. For some reason, my dear friend Tiffany and I found ALL of these things appealing and volunteered to be 8th Grade Leaders for the weekend. I say that dryly, but the weekend was truly a blast and a BLESSING. This was our LIVELY group of nine...

They were fully of energy, and let's face it, they are 8th graders, so they were more than obsessed with the band. Just look at these faces as they got "autographs".....

Friday night kicked off with a rockin' concert by The Brighter and a message by Travis Crim (amazing and hilarious). After being the last to leave the church (see above photo for reason why) we packed DOZENS of bags in the car (only necessities for the weekend, right?) and headed to our host home for our first lesson. As lively as the girls were, they were so attentive during our lessons and hungry to hear more about Christ. The curriculum this year was called "Imitator" and was centered around Ephesians 5:1-2: "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." There are SO many false imitators in our society these days, but luckily, the Bible tells us exactly what we need to be imitating. So our lessons were spent discussing why we would want to imitate God, what NOT to imitate (the "world") and how to actually go about imitating. I have to admit, this curriculum was totally convicting for me too; it's hard to put imitating into action on a daily basis!

After a 2 hour lesson (it's now rounding midnight) the girls informed me & Tiffany that they still needed to paint shirts for recreation day on Saturday. The problem was that there was a shortage of shirts and paint. So us fearless leaders hopped in the car and headed to Wal-Mart, returning at an exhausting hour of 1:00 A.M. Shirt painting commenced and we shut it down by 2:00 A.M. Tiffany and I are delirious at this point. Somehow we pulled it together the next day.......couldn't have done it with her...

Saturday was full of silliness, competition, and worship! Travis Crim wrapped up the night and two of our girls gave their lives to Christ! It was amazing to see how excited they were and how much they grew over 48 short hours. Not sure who was more blessed...them or us...it was a great weekend.

So LATER...the next weekend, Jeremie's mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law AND of course Baby Judah came to visit for one last hoop-la in Tallahassee. We had a fabulous time catching up and getting some love from our nephew. He is growing up SO fast and is just too much fun. His little laugh just fills my heart. I loved seeing how his little personality has developed. We took him for a stroll around Lake Ella and shopping at Marshall's,which wore him out because he slept through lunch in the loud Mexican Restaurant. Jeremie's mom wasn't going to miss celebrating J's birthday, so we sneaked to Lucy and Leo's for cupcakes. YUM. It was wonderful to spend time with family, especially since we're going to be even further from them when we move to Dallas : (