The week went great for Faith too and she got to spend a lot of great time with the youth group students.  The hardest part was that both of us had to be away from Aiden for over a week!  We missed him but it doesn’t sound like he was too bothered!  He had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa Mercurio!

The Activities hall was 600′ by 300′! It was huge!?

All our wonderful Activities Hall workers!

Last week, Faith and I took Aiden and some of the youth group up to a Christian Music Festival called Revelation Generation.  It was a long day but I think the students loved it!  It was actually the first day we had Aiden outside for the whole day!  It took a little extra planning but it went off without a hitch.  We had to sit a bit further back than we normally would have but I guess you have to make some sacrifices right?

Well, Faith and I survived another District Youth Retreat!  It was a blast to spend the weekend with all the students!  Rockbridge camp is amazing!  It’s always great when God gives a front row seat to watch Him work!  He did some cool stuff in the hearts of our students.  Many of them came to the realization for the first time that this whole Christianity thing isn’t about doing a bunch of stuff but about being in a love relationship with Jesus!  It was awesome to see them recognize how much God loves them!

Click the picture to see more shots…

Last Saturday Faith and I took a couple students to a Sanctus Real concert up at a church in Lancaster.  As expected, it was an awesome show and I spent the whole time taking pictures and practicing with my new camera.  Concerts are really hard to photograph!?  The low and constantly changing light makes it super difficult to get that perfect shot.  Needless to say, I took a lot of pictures.  Click the pictures to see them all.

Man I love Colorado!  Every time I go I just want to stay and never come back.  I went out last week for Engage ’08.  Engage is the conference for all the Alliance Youth Point-People.  It basically means that I got to spend time with about 40 other Alliance youth pastors from every corner of the country.  One of the nights was sweet because we got a free Trace Bundy concert!  He was fun to meet and talk with and he was definitely an amazing guitarist!  Much of our week was spent in the hotel conference center but we did get some “mountain” time!

A bunch of us went on a short hike up to the top of Mt. Herman which overlooked CO Springs.  It was nice but the best part of the trip was the extra day Rick and I spent driving to the Dunes and to the Royal Gorge after the conference was over…

We drove south through Pueblo, west to the dunes, north to Salida and then east to Canon City and eventually Colorado Springs again.  The dunes were amazing!  I really can’t even describe the feeling because I’ve never been able to run around in mountains of sand before!  It was almost surreal, like I was on a different planet!  Still haven’t been able to make it out to see the Maroon Bells but that trip is coming!  Click on any of the pictures to check out the whole album!

Mmmm...everything smelled like chocolate!

Not too much to say about the trip other than that it was awesome! It was hot and sweaty and crowded but the rides made up for it. I didn’t even take any real pictures because we were too busy trying to get on as many roller coasters as possible before the day was out. Some of the pictures I did take were of us just sitting in line waiting…not too exciting.

We spent two nights camping up near the Delaware Water Gap and had an awesome time! I think the biggest surprise of the week had to be how may bears we saw! During our first night camping we had a young bear pop out of the woods and circle our camp for an hour while I made lasagna hamburger helper! The next day we hiked up to the Gap overlook and saw two or three more bears! Once we reached the overlook we stopped and had lunch on the rocky outcropping. After lunch, we left our bags (stupid!?) and climbed down the rocks a bit for a better view and wouldn’t you know it, when we climbed back up, a bear was eating our leftover food! When the bear saw us it jumped off the rock and I went to get our backpacks only to discover that the bear was just sitting 3 ft. away! I can’t say I wasn’t scared but I made sure I snapped a few shots before I grabbed the packs and got out of there! For the most part, none of the bears seemed aggressive at all. I actually think the one that ate our lunch was tagged in both its ears. We didn’t get to do our river tubing like we had hoped because of the weather but the bears definitely made up for it! Click the picture for more shots of our trip! Oh, and here’s some of our bear footage…

Wow, there’s so much I could say about our Youth Retreat this year I don’t even know where to start. God is awesome! The weekend was exhausting but we all had a blast! We had about 13 students come down to join another 400+ students from CMA Churches across the Mid-Atlantic District. It was definitely a powerful weekend that our students won’t forget! Check out the pictures!