Hey everyone!

I hope you all have had time to recuperate from the mission trip.  =)  Hopefully you have had time to reflect on everything you experienced and learned last week.  I learned a lot about myself through the crew devotions, and it was really cool to meet people from other youth groups.  These two things reinforced how important it is to maintain relationships.  It takes a lot of work to keep a relationship going and quite often it takes sacrifices from both parties.  Whether it’s with your parents, siblings, friends, significant other, or people in authority (such as the amazing staff that took care of us last week) it is important to remember that we are asked to love the other person as we love ourselves.  As I’m sure you all remember, the ways we can do this are to serve, risk, and forgive those people that we love.  None of these things are very easy for me.  I don’t think they come naturally to most people, and so I want to challenge you all to work on these things in your everyday relationships.  Start by choosing one person and go on from there.  I will choose my sister because we don’t really get along…ever.  Feel free to ask how it is going if you are interested.  Accountability is very important in our faith.  So, remember to Love Out Loud here at home!  It doesn’t have to be a service project or a mission trip; you can start right now with the people around you!

FHS,

Anna

I just wanted to post a few congratulations to youth in EYC.  If you know of an achievement not listed here, please post a comment or e-mail me to let me know and I will make sure it gets added!

First (and unfortunately) though, I need to say congrats to the parents for winning the annual kickball game!  It was a great game and thanks to all that came out and played.  It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time!

 Now, on to the youth…

Sarah, Madison and Camille were all inducted into the National Junior Honor Society at Midway Middle School!  Good job and keep up the good grades!

Colton has been invited to attend a leadership program for youth!  A teacher from his school nominated him for this program, which is quite an honor since only a few students are chosen each summer! 

And, to the seniors, Isla, Ginnie, Monica, Lauren, Nick F., Nick D., Elliott, Adam and Wyn are all so close to graduating!  Congrats to all of you and know that you remain in our prayers as you head off to various schools!  Keep us posted on how things are going and try to find a good campus ministry to get involved in!

Again, if you know of any other congrats that need to be awarded, let me know.  I can only post what I hear from the youth and the parents!

In His Love,

Erin

So, after reading many blogs about various youth ministry topics, I decided that St. Paul’s EYC needed their own blog.  I think that it is very important for me to keep up with each student and keep each student (and parent) informed of what is going on with our youth group.  I hope that this becomes a site you can visit often, commenting on posts and using it as a starting point for discussions and prayers. 

Some of you might be wondering, or have even asked me, why we can’t have a mySpace or Facebook account.  The answer is simple- some parents don’t allow their youth to have those accounts and I want this to be something that all of our group can share.  I also want parents to be able to use this and many parents don’t want anything to do with mySpace or Facebook. 

So, leave a comment and keep checking back.  I’ll try to post something at least twice a week.  You never know what you will find, from devotions to questions to pictures, and you certainly won’t know if you don’t check it out.

Peace,

Erin