Last night Solanco Young Life celebrated its second annual Christmas party. This party includes both current students and alumni and is a fairly unorganized chaotic mess of fun, laughter, and gift giving (and stealing). We dress in the Christmas spirit, except for me (someone has to be scrooge), play the white elephant gift exchange, and listen to conventional and unconventional Christmas music (if you've never heard "Favorite Christmas Story" by Capital Lights it comes highly recommended).
As you can see from the blurry picture, we had over 40 kids in the Kauffman's basement. Last night was just incredible. People who normally don't hang out or associate together were jumping around and dancing to music, were throwing pretzels into eachother's mouths, and laughing about the randomness of the white elephant gifts. Tom still reigns as most creative gift by bringing a urinal painted yellow with a smiley face inside. Oddly enough, Owen and Anthony actually fought over that gift.
Owen has been one of the highlights of club for me this year. To paint a picture of who Owen is: He's kind of a punk kid that likes to drive fast, break the rules, and freak people out. He brought an 8ft red boa constrictor snake to the party last night. He gives his friends tattoos himself and regularly gets in trouble at school for being disruptive. One of the first times I met Owen he had what I thought was a bloody knuckle. Apparently he just painted it on. He had me believing he was in a fight and punched some kid in the face. Someone told me it was fake, and I looked at Owen and said if he tells me it's real I'm going to believe him. Obviously he lied, but I'll continue to believe him when he tells me things. For what it's worth, I actually don't think he's lied to me since that night.
During the sin talk this year I was pretty sick and was losing my voice quickly. I had a glass of water and a music stand with me up front and we joked about how all I needed was stool and I would look like a stand up comedian. The drummer, Shayne, quickly gave me his stool, and I set my glass of water on it. Owen asked if he could sit on it during my talk, so I handed it to him in the crowd. I quickly realized this was a squeaky stool. I told Owen he had 10 seconds to get all the squeaking out, but it would distract me the rest of the night if he kept doing it. To my surprise, Owen was hanging on every word I said that night. You could hear a pin drop in the room as I talked about the condition of sin that we all have, and that God didn't leave us out to dry. He did something about it.
As you celebrate Christmas this year (what God did about our condition of sin), please celebrate with us all the things the Lord has done. He's brought kids like Owen, Will, Derrick, and Nate to a Christmas party to celebrate with Christians like Tom, Lydia, Shira, Caleb, Jesse, and myself. Emmanuel, God with us, is with Owen and working in his heart as his friendship with Tom continues to develop.
Let's pray boldly for miracles this upcoming semester, and let's love people ruthlessly and sacrificially. Not only did God come to earth, but He entered our wicked hearts and is changing us into the people we were always meant to be. That's a life long process that I am so blessed to be a part of in girls like Tori, Kayla, Alyssa, and Celeste (even if they don't know it's happening).
Truly, have a Merry Christmas,
Love,
SLC YL
No comments:
Post a Comment