Top Pictures of 2013

I had a hard time narrowing it down to 45 pictures.  I have so many good memories from 2013.  These are just a few of the best pictures from the year.

Bringing in the New Year

youth group 

Whitney's 14th birthday

D-group slumber party

Baby Rosemary's Shower

Veronica's birthday

youth group

Spray paint canvas at d-group 

Both Justine and Miranda painted their canvases for their moms

Art day with the kids

Art Day 

Art Day

Beautiful art

Kristen at the art day 

In the summer we went to Rim Rock Lake with the youth who helped on the work site

Rim Rock Lake 

Jedi and Alexa at Rim Rock Lake

Miranda and Judy drawing with Azi at kids club

new shed the youth girls built at the church building 

Chris helping the kids with the skit at kids club

Mary in the kitchen at church with her helpers Kristen and Lillian 

Lynisha and Alexa working on the shed

boats at kids club

adirondack chairs built by the youth group

Justine and Alexa's birthday at Dairy Queen 

Intern team wearing donated snow hats in August 

Connie and I made surprise cupcakes

Connie and DJ washing the truck for the Harrah Parade

Morgan and DJ

Connie, Judy and Miranda decorating the float for the parade

Justine and DJ at the Parade

Youth Group in the Parade

Youth Group in the Harrah Parade

Anika's 15th birthday 

Our new cat, Jago

In October I went to Chattanooga for a reunion with my college roommates 

painting picture frames at d-group 

5th annual pumpkin carving with the d-groups

The neighbor's goats took over our yard this fall

D-group Christmas Picture

D-group decorating cookies for the youth group Christmas party

Morgan :)

Alexa and Yaanibaah

Connie and DJ decorating cookies

I was very impressed with the time and detail they put into each cookie!

Christmas Letter 2013

Merry Christmas Family and Friends,

This year my discipleship girls and I sat down and wrote out our favorite memories together from 2013.  It was fun to hear them recollect the things we had done over the past year.  This letter is a collection of paragraphs of what each of them had to say about the past year.

Hi, I am Alexa Sapphire Weaseltail.  I am a member of Hope Fellowship Church.  My favorite part of 2013 was in the summer when we built a shed at the new church building.  I also remember in the summer when we floated down the Yakima River.  We played a game in the river where we raced upstream to the closest branch.  I also love singing with Heather and being a leader at Sunday Church.  My favorite songs to sing are: On Jordan’s Stormy Banks, Our God, More Love, Soon and Very Soon, and Amazing Grace.

Hello, my name is Yaanibaah Starr Singer.   I am 14 and I am in the 9^th grade.  2013 hasn’t really been good, because I have had a family member pass away.  It was sad, because they were very close to me.  But after all that has happened I have had really close friends that supported me and made me feel special and loved.   I am really glad that I have them.  I have had some really good times at youth group with all of them because they support me every time I go there.  Over this year I have been nice to a lot of people because I am thankful for a lot of things and I am thankful I turned to the Lord.

Hello, my name is Justine Andrade.  I am 13.  The best part of 2013 was my birthday with the d-group at Dairy Queen.

My name is Miranda Dehart.  The best thing that was fun about this year was when we did work on the [church] building.  When that happened I got paint in my mouth.  My favorite part of Hope Fellowship Youth Group is coming together and singing and praying together.  I have learned that Jesus died on the cross for us and sacrificed for us on the cross.

Hello, my name is Judy Bergevin.  I’m in 8^th grade and my favorite part of 2013 was meeting all the interns over the summer.  I miss everyone that I met over the summer because they meant a lot to me.  I got complimented on art so I got inspired to be an artist. I’m in art class and doing I’m doing hard tasks. 

My name is Whitney Lewis.  This year I really liked being in the Harrah Parade (with the youth group).  I really liked my birthday and Halloween and Easter.  I am in Heather’s D-group.

My favorite memories surround my d-group girls.  I have loved having the girls in my home this year for d-group, or slumber parties or just for the weekend when they needed a place to stay.  My house feels more complete when it is full of girls. 

We are very eager to get into our new church building in January.  Hardly a week goes by without one of the youth or children asking about the progress on the building.  The building will multiply our options for outreach.   It will be a safe haven for children and youth throughout the week.  We are in the midst of raising funds for a playground, basketball court, volleyball court, and playing fields to complete the facilities.  Pray with us for the completion of our building and facilities as we enter a new year.  Thank you for all of your love and support.

Diary From the Weekend

Friday Afternoon at 5:15 Chris closes are staff meeting in prayer and 5 minutes later I am cranking up the 15 passenger van to start picking up my youth girls.  (All girls in our youth group are my girls) First things first, I turn the air on full blast.  We only have one setting on the air- off or full blast.  Today I am thankful it is full blast because I have been in the van for 30 seconds and i can feel the sweat gathering behind me knees.  For the next hour and a half I am driving through housing projects, down long driveways and onto dirt roads.  Finally we have our crew and we arrive at the church building in just enough time to wash the truck and trailer for our float in the morning.  The guys are already at work assembling the giant Mt. Adams that makes up our float.  In a half hour we are out of day light and we gather around the fire pit to roast hotdogs and eat s'mores.  Because it is Friday the 13th, the boys are coming up with creative ways to scare everyone.  Chuck even bought color packets to casually throw into the fire to make it change colors.  The boys are camping out at the building in tents, but the girls are all coming back to Veronica and my house.  We load up in the van and I can hear whispers and the voice of a boy under the seats.  I pretend I don't notice and pull away from the building, up the long driveway.  The boy suddenly pops out from under the seats.  "I'm in here! Let me out!" I keep driving, I hear the panic in his voice.  I giggle to myself and keep driving until I am sure he has learned his lesson.  I stop open the doors and let him run all the way back down the driveway to the safety of the other boys.

Back at my house the 12 girls find places to sleep.  Then we pull out the nail polish and eat popcorn and red vines.  No matter what age group is staying at our house, interns, high school, middle school or elementary age girls, they all love painting nails.  So we had 14 of us ranging in age from 11-28 and everyone enjoys a new coat of polish on their toe nails and finger nails.  At 10pm the hair straighteners come out, and half the girls straightened hair before bed.  At 11 we start moving for bed. Half of the girls decided to move to a different bed than they had first chosen.   At 12:30 I was fixing a curtain that had fallen down because of too much moving around in the room.

At a quarter to 8 I hear some of the girls beginning to wake.  I almost have breakfast ready- blueberry muffins, bacon, peaches, and orange juice.  As the girls begin to rise we eat breakfast in shifts, because there is not room for everyone at the table. They take turns rotating through our one bathroom.  At 9:30 we are out the door and in 15 minutes we are on site assembling our float. As we hang streamers and attach balloons more and more kids from the youth group keeping arriving to help.  Finally it is parade time and we are ready.  Buckets of candy are in place.  The walkers are ready to go and for the next 40 minutes we march down the main street in Harrah, tossing candy to those who came to watch.  We won a trophy! After the parade there is a festival in the park.   We take the youth over to get a bite to eat.  Everyone is exhausted, so we don't stay long.  We load up back into to steaming 15 passenger van and begin the drop off process.

Finally At 3:30 I am pulling back into my driveway still with one youth who is staying the weekend with me.  We start to clean up the disaster in the house, but soon we collapse on the couch and watch High School Musical.  Another youth comes over to join us.  She has not been involved in youth ministry for the past year and we have missed her.  I am so happy she is with us.  At dinner she grabs my arm arm and lays her head on my shoulder.  I smile.  I am so glad she is coming back to us again.   We venture out a few hours later to find some ice cream.  We take it over  the the Granberrys for a little ice cream party.  They have a few extra little ones staying with them as well.  The party doesn't last long because we are all tired and ready for bed.

Sunday morning is calm and relaxing.  We eat a late breakfast and before we know it we were eating lunch.  After lunch we head over the the Granberrys to get ready for Sunday night church.  They have other youth from the community already there.  Most of them spend the afternoon having a water balloon war.  Mary and I are cooking with some help from one of the youth. Before long we are on our way to the long house to set up for church.  We arrive and as we are unloading we have the excitement of getting a squirrel out of the long house.  You never know what might be awaiting you when you open the doors of the long house. There have been many surprises over the years, dead and alive.  Soon the buses start coming and people start arriving.  It was a relatively normal night of church. besides the thunder and lightning storm that was going on outside during church.  After church, clean up goes fast with the help of the youth.  I say farewell to the youth and remind them of the game night we are having on Tuesday.

I get home at 10pm almost ready to crash.  I eat a late snack, because I don't rarely eat any dinner on Sundays.  I think through the weekend.  I am so thankful for what I get to do.

Who's Bus is it?

Last week at Church I was setting the dining room for dinner with the help of 10 year old LaShae.  As we were setting, Veronica pulled up in the big school bus full of kids and youth coming to church and LaShae asked me, "Whose bus is that?  Is it Veronica's Bus?"  I told her,"no" that it wasn't really Veronica's bus it was the Church's bus.  She thought for barely a second before she responded, " Oh, so that's our bus."  "Yes," I said, "That's our bus."  Her next questions was, "How did we pay for it? I got to explain to her how people from churches all over the country gave money so that we could buy it, and she thought that was really cool.    It was neat to hear her include herself in the church.  She didn't say "Oh, so its Sacred Road's bus." She said, "Its our bus."  She knew if it was the church's bus  it belonged to her too, because she is part of the church.