Bye Bye Winter!

Spring is here and winter will soon become a distant memory… though I love the cold I think I’m happy to see it go away for awhile!!! But with winter receding it also means summer is looming on the horizon. And wow, what a summer we have planned! Everything, from VBS to sock wars, from pizza and sugar infused drink filled nights to kidnappings, from Europe to taping kids on the outside church wall (ahem… uh yeah… I can explain, I think!!!). In other words we’re looking forward to an action packed summer for our youth. There’s much to plan for and much to pray for. Here are some things to keep in mind:                                                                                                                        

• We will be welcoming back Jordan Spivey. For those of you who don’t know, Jordan was our youth intern last year. We liked him so much, we thought we’d have him come back this year! He is scheduled to be arriving here on May 18^th, and will be staying with us until August 17^th.

• The Europe trip is taking shape. We are scheduled to leave July 22^nd and return August 5^th. We are still in the process of outlining our plans for Italy but the German portion of our trip is all planned. You may have seen a number of fund raisers happening around the church. The proceeds from those fundraisers are to help alleviate the cost of this trip. We are in real need of funds to help get the youth on this trip. If you feel led, please let me know if you would like to support the trip financially. I believe that this trip will have an immense impact on our youth. In Germany we will be attending the Baptist World Youth Alliance conference, where youth groups from all over the world will be attending. The motivation of the conference is to equip our youth to better outreach to the world around them. In Italy we will be teaming up with a youth group from Rome, experiencing and outreaching from within the Italian culture.

• Finders Keepers (Vacation Bible School). As a youth group we are intending to play a prominent role in helping organize and support this children’s ministry outreach event. I can enthusiastically encourage everyone in our church community to help out. Finders Keepers is happening from June 23 to June 28 here at Southview.

There’s so much more planned (including that taping issue!!!). Please keep in prayer all of these events, that we may have a safe, spirit-led and fun summer! In the meantime…. The planning continues!