SERVE 2010 has begun

We made it to Master's College today and the kids had a wild and wonderfully fun afternoon of hanging out with the "big kids" after we all got our luggage into our rooms.  I absolutely could not believe how much energy they had after getting up at 4:15 am- and only one of them took a 10 minute nap on the plane!  Alex was running up and down the hallways with big boys chasing after him, Max was engrossed in card games, foosball and basketball in the dorm lobby, the girls were in heaven making friendship bracelets with the older girls, and Kyler was building Lego creations with a new student friend.  All I wanted to do was take a nap. :-)
They were still running at 7 pm- racing each other up enormously long flights of stairs up the hillside, reveling in the all you can eat buffet of the cafeteria (with soft serve ice cream cones!), chatting and visiting with all the students, and thanking me profusely for bringing them on this trip.
By 7:30 or so, seated in the worship center for our first session, the comments were changing...  "I'm so tired..."  "When can we go back?"  "Why are we here?"  "Don't touch me!"  Some of the comments were non-verbal but still very clear, and Alex couldn't say anything because he was asleep in my arms. :-)   Max could have held out longer, and indeed wondered why we decided to leave so early in the session, but leave we did and began the long walk back to our dorms up the hill.  A bit less racing this time as we started, but by the time we got halfway there the races began again and I started to hear, "Why couldn't we stay longer?"  "I wanted to stay for singing!"  "Why did you make us leave?"  Ah, such a cruel, thoughtless Mom I am, obviously not in tune with what they really wanted... :-)
Within about 15 minutes, all were asleep in their beds, and of course they look like sweet sleepy angels all sprawled out.  Except Max.  He's still awake.  I know this because I just sneezed and heard "Bless you," from the floor.

Tomorrow we have an early morning with breakfast at 7 am followed by our morning worship session.  I hope that they are all able to appreciate and learn what they can from these times together, according to their ages.  For some, it may just be a sense of community and common purpose, coming together as many people to serve our one Lord Jesus.  I hope that several of them will truly allow God to show them more about Himself, and that they will be challenged and grow in the ways that God has for them these coming weeks.

Fatigue, tiredness and trial have a way of bringing out all kinds of things in us... things we generally would rather not see!  I pray that we will have grace and patience with each other, and will be an encouragement and support to each other as we follow Christ together.

After our morning session, we're all off to spend the majority of the day at Magic Mountain.  I think it's called "team building," or something like that.  :-)

I'm pretty sure I'll have some elated and tired kids in my van at the end of the day!