Long Days!!

Finally had a chance to blog, but of course I left my camera at the hotel (charging). Hopefully, pictures will follow soon.

Wow...our travel day was intense. Basically I was awake from before church Sunday morning to Monday evening when I finally had a chance to crash. I had a few minutes of shut-eye on one of our flights, but other than that it was a really long day.

So far, this is what we've done:
- Travel across the country
- Have a great time meeting new people
- Contribute to a huuuuuge amount of food that will feed 5000+ families on Saturday
- Which we hauled all over St. Louis!!
- Watch a concert with Toby Mac
- Hear Greg Stier bring a powerful and challenging message last night - "Is Jesus my most embarrassing friend?"
- Worship with Starfield and Joshua Chavez Band
- Got challenged by Professor Mike Kipp and the Woman at the Well
- Went to first day of tracks today! Many had an awesome time...others had to be a little flexible with some logistics. (The NYC staff is doing an amazing job)
- Some of our kids met Greg Stier last night and Nick Messenger got his phone number!!
- We all got to hang out in front of our hotel last night for an hour or so while the fire department came and shut off the sprinklers that went off in a kids room! Don't worry, the room wasn't our district. But it was pretty great that while our group was waiting on the lawn outside to get back to their rooms to go to sleep at 1:30 am, the lawn sprinklers went off. Thankfully it was still hot and muggy out!

Pray for us tonight! We had some sleepy kids during the morning session because of the lack of sleep due to the sprinkler malfunction. God is moving in a mighty way, and I just pray our students would have hearts that are soft to his voice. This morning's message was so perfect for so many of our students, but some of them missed it because they were tired.

More to come later....

Some girls from P-town playing "Nerts." Don't ask, I didn't get it either. Yes, they are each playing with a full deck.

This was our mini-jet...a complete contrast to the 777 we flew through the night. We went from 9 across in a row to 3. My legs got more sleep than I did...I think they are still tingling.

It is true, Starbucks is global! Well, it's in St. Louis anyway, so that's pretty cool. This was our first stop after a looooooong hike with our bags.

We were exhausted after dragging our bags all over the world (aka, St. Louis). These guys wasted zero time falling asleep in the lobby while we waited for our rooms to become ready.

Some more resters. By the way, there are about 4 or 5 students who decided not to go get lunch right now, because they wanted to sleep on a couch in the lobby. This is why we didn't fly the red-eye tonight. :)

NYC 2007 is finally here! Can you believe it? I am not quite sure the reality of this next week has hit me yet. For close to two years Donabel (our District President) and I, Curtis (District NYC Coordinator), have been planning, talking, administrating, and dreaming about this week.

This blog will be the place where you as parents, youth supporters, friends, or whoever you are can come and see the latest of what the students at NYC are experiencing. Hopefully, we will have pictures updated once or more a day (depending on the schedule). I also want to share my thoughts and observations with you as we get into the week. Lastly, I hoping to get students’ comments, feedback, and spiritual insights as they get on here to record their week.

We’ll see how this whole idea works, but just in case it does and the results are fabulous you may want to bookmark this link!

See you soon!

Will you pray for the sanity of the adult sponsors this week? Clearly, our flight wasn’t going to leave without any students, but of course before we could even leave the beautiful state of California I was sweating. No seriously, I was actually sweating. It turned out a couple students wanted some Subway and so they went and got it five minutes before our plane began to board. Granted a sponsor gave them permission, but still 5 minutes isn’t a lot of time. Especially, when you accidentally cross back through the security checkpoint to get your Subway, without a boarding pass (because you left it with your sponsor), and then are forced to go through the entire 20-30 minute check-in/security check process again. Oh yeah, why was I sweating? Because when the last person boarded the plane and Donabel and I were left standing there waiting for our students, I got a bit nervous and went running (“Home Alone” style) back through the airport terminal to find them.

Ahhh…the joys of coordinating a trip across the country with 100 students!

As I am writing this, I am sitting in my seat several rows behind the rest of our group, praying for them, and thinking about how great of a week they are going to have. I just pray they sleep tonight or at least sometime tomorrow, so that Tuesday they will be fully alive and rested, so that their hearts can be open and alert to the powerful Word of God!

Hope you enjoy the airport pics…

Taylor and Chelsea saying goodbye

Analise and Curtis hanging out with their new friend Brandon (from The Point)


Bunch of guys having fun before we went through security (Two of these guys aren't even going to NYC, can you guess who)

You probably wouldn't have guessed that these two "gentlemen" are the ones who keep popping up in the pictures, but are still in California while we go to St. Louis