Christmas Parties, Sleepovers, and very Long Meetings.

Now, in blogger world, apparently it's really best if you don't try to record every detail of your life. For instance, if I began this message with "today my alarm went off at 7:30, and I rolled around in bed for 47 minutes before finally standing up, getting a shower, changing my clothes, washing my face, applying my makeup, cleaning up the kitchen, making some coffee and heading into work," you might begin to question your interest in reading this webpage.

BUT, when 3 very exciting things happen in a period of two days, does it mean that I should only record ONE of them?? NO! Because they are exciting. So, against my desire to keep these entries concise, I will try to write briefly on all 3 events.

Event #1--The Annual YD Christmas Party.
On Thursday Night I joined with my 30 fellow YD Staffers for what I truly believe is the best of all possible Office Christmas Parties. We were gathered in this humongoid mansion at the top of a mountain, drinking spiced cider and singing worship songs. I was huddled a plush couch with a few of my YD friends thinking how awesome it is that I LOVE the people I work with and I am FRIENDS with them. I respect all of them, and I just love serving with them. It was an extremely wonderful realization.

Event #2--A Very Long Meeting
It's also great to realize that the morning after the office Christmas Party, I can spend EIGHT hours discussing 'operational definitions for core ministry competencies' with my co-workers and still love them. During a break in hour 4 of our meeting, I started climbing up a pole in the middle of the room, and trying to climb up the edge of the stairs. My co-workers were looking at me and saying, "Where do you get your energy?" I said, "I don't know. I'm usually pretty tired. Maybe not being around high schoolers for one day totally puts my batteries into overload because they aren't being sucked dry." and also--apparently my attention span has shrunk to high-school-sized, because I often doodle and giggle during eight hours of meetings.

Event #3--A Very Long Sleepover.
On Friday night (after the Party and the meeting), 6 teenage girls showed up on my doorstep for a sleepover. We made pizza from SCRATCH, watched VeggieTales, talked, journalled, and had an all-around stellar time. The highlight was certainly playing dressup with my prom dresses and my silly hat collection....having 6 wonderful girls to fellowship with at the end of a very fast-paced semester encouraged me that ministry is right where it should be.