Many of you may have heard by now that the Texas Youth Councils was postponed to October due to the Army’s potential involvement in the continuing story revolving around the YFZ Ranch near San Angelo. After the painful decision to postpone Youth Councils was made, the State decided to go in a different direction (due to court order), and we were not able to salvage our weekend event. The teenagers here in Lufkin had worked very hard on some program elements for Youth Councils this year, and we were very disappointed for them that they were not going to have a weekend to celebrate their achievements and interact with their friends. I was very proud of them when they unanimously affirmed that the decision the administration made was the right one as far as they were concerned, since we had to ‘take care of the kids.’ My wife, our assistant Kristen and I decided we needed to do something for our kids over the weekend to reward their hard work and their willingness to sacrifice. So we put together a Lock-In event. As our kids are blossoming into leaders, we asked them to help plan the theme for the event. They chose ‘Light Up The Darkness,’ and based it on several scriptures, but especially Matthew 5:16 – “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” We invited other Salvation Army units as well as local churches to be involved. Unfortunately, this was also the week of the TAKS tests (the basic skills assessment required for grade advancement) in the schools, so many were not able to participate. We did have one church’s fine arts and drama group perform many of the sketches they had put together for competition, and one of their youth pastors brought the Word to everyone. Our praise and worship team led the singing, and our sacred dance troupe performed ‘Before the Throne of God,’ the same dance that they were scheduled to perform at Youth Councils. After the initial meeting, we all shared pizza and played a few games, we were joined by young people from one of the Salvation Army corps in the Houston area, and we settled in for a long night. About midnight, we gathered in the alley between the corps and the shelter for a game involving jello, peanut butter, balloons, shaving cream and Lifesavers candy. Don’t ask. If you are insanely curious, check out the pictures elsewhere on this site. The kids finished off the pizza, played Sing Star and other video games and watched a movie. I myself didn’t get to where I could shut my eyes ‘til nearly 4:00 a.m…. The next morning, everyone (except me) more or less slept in. I was awake uploading some of the pictures to our church site, and finishing items for Sunday. The rest got up, nibbled on some breakfast items (around 11:00 a.m.) and began getting themselves together. Kristen began mixing water and cornstarch to create what I referred to as “an experiment in non-Newtonian fluid mechanics” (a larger-scale version of what we were playing with can be found here – be aware: the language is Spanish I think, but just watch). We gathered around noon (or so – time got a little fuzzy for me at this point) for more praise and worship, and a devotional led by Kristen. Then, the kids decided they wanted to play kickball, and at this point I decided that my old body had had enough. I went home, leaving the event in the capable hands of Kristen. After I left, I learned that they played some more games, went to a movie, and finally ended the Lock-In at about 4:30 p.m. One of the really cool things was that with one exception, they were all at church on Sunday. I’ll have some more pictures up, and I may even have some video as well. Stay tuned. |
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