another wednesday.

christmas is making me crazy. i have so many things to get done, and i feel like i have no time to get it done in. this happens to me every year, because i am a HUGE procrastinator. i have to finish MAKING 9 christmas presents, buy two more, rap at least ten others. whew. christmas is making me crazy.

in other news, tonight is the last EPIC youth night of 2008. its been a great year, and i hate to see it go. but, i know that next year is going to be crazy. i can't wait to see what God has in store for our little youth group in the months ahead. also, tonight is the last night Lorel will be joining us at EPIC for a while. she leaves in 12 days for basic with the army reserves. what am i going to do without my other half for a whole six months?!

also, only 196 days until zimbabwe. i cannot begin to describe how anxious i am for this trip to take place. i wish i could go right now, but i know that i have to be patient and wait for july...i just wish july was the next month and not january.

a thought just hit me regarding wednesdays and my youth group. we only have 52 wednesdays a year. when you cut out holidays and the like, this means we only meet for EPIC about 48 days a year. and from there, it could further be cut down because of theme nights, and trips where we don't see some of them. that means there is only about 40 days a year that we see these students, and only for about 2 hours a day. that's only 80 hours of the 8760 hours that they have for a whole year: .9% of their time is spent at church. less than 1%. what are we feeding them, spiritually, in these few moments we are together? are we equiping them enough to deal with the other 99% of their year that they don't spend with us? sure, they go on maybe one or two trips with us a year, and they might come on sundays, or to bible study every now and then. but, are we dealing with the ones who only come on wednesdays? or are we just telling them to come spend more time with us, but getting nowhere in discipling them?

goodness, i now see why kelly wants us to shake up how EPIC happens. i understood that he wanted us to go somewhere else, but now i really think i get it. i want the students to feel that they can turn to me with questions when they are out facing the world in those other times we aren't together. i want to make sure that with the 1% of time i have to show them how to fight in this spiritual battle they will be able to do just that in the other 99%. i want them to understand that they don't have to fight alone. with the 1% of time we are together, i want a community to be created. one where life can be shared outside the 1%, so maybe their 99% doesn't seem so unatainable.

my brain feels like it may explode....