Freedom!

We're back from Kadesh. What an incredible week. This year featured a new curriculum called "Freedom." We worked with teens all week trying to get them to cut themselves free from the things that hold them back from a close relationship with Christ. We had a great group (as always) and after this year's Thursday night event, I don't know that I'll ever look at Communion the same way again. It's top secret Kadesh info, though -- if you want to know what happened, attend a Kadesh session four years from now!

Another thing I love about Kadesh is that they offer childcare for group leaders with children. This is why Kadesh is the only youth group event in which I can fully participate. We had wonderful babysitters this year, including Melissa, who is the daughter of this guy. (I called Melissa "Meagan" for a whole day before she straightened me out. Ugh.) Melissa had the challenge of putting Jenna to bed one night. I asked her how it went the next day and she said, "She fought it at first, but then I just started praying over her and she went to sleep." See, even your toddlers can have a great spiritual experience at Kadesh! And Julia had a blast at KidQuest. One more year of that and she'll be old enough for Learning to Lead.

I did work in time to have a mini-reunion with some of my friends from the Highland office, where I used to work. Jenna and I met up with Brenda Chrane, Gina Lewis and Mike Cope on Tuesday. Later in the week, I ran into Beverly in the Campus Center.

Any of you ACU grads remember the Dairy Queen on Ambler on the way out of town toward Hamby? I think there was some farmland or something behind it. Now, there's a Chili's and a Cracker Barrel and a big ol' honkin' Wal-Mart back there! All that wasn't there a year ago. The new Wal-Mart came in quite handy when Chad and I realized we had showed up for a week at Kadesh without ONE SINGLE TOWEL OR WASHCLOTH.

Now we are packing and moving closer to the closing date of our house. We've been getting some really sweet cards from members of our new church. Julia and I were looking at photos on the church website of their summer kids' program and were surprised to see her in some of them. I remembered the program started the same Sunday we were there interviewing at the beginning of June. So it was neat to see those pictures and Julia already being a part of things at LRC. Speaking of LRC, I've added a link to the Little Rock Church website.

Now we're looking forward to Chad's cousin Kimberly Nall's wedding in Dallas this weekend. Julia will be the flower girl and we are all so excited. Kimberly was our junior bridesmaid 13 years ago so it's an extra honor for us that she chose Julia to be in her wedding.

I'll try to post some Kadesh pics later in the week!