When Brad and I were on Young Life Staff and we found out we were pregnant, all we could think about was how amazing it was going to be to raise our kids around Young Life...especially taking them to Young Life camps.  Then God changed our plans and sent us back to my hometown...which meant leaving YL Staff.  Thankfully, we have been able to continue doing ministry through YL, but now we are just volunteers.  Our kids know that Friday nights are usually going to be spent at a high school football game or basketball game (or some sort of sport). They know that there will always be highschoolers at our house.  And they know that Mommy and Daddy will be headed to YL club on Mondays to be with our high school friends.  So, not too much as changed between being on YL Staff and serving as a volunteer...except for the amount of time our kids get to spend at YL Camps.

Most YL staff kids get to spend a month of the summer at a YL Camp while their mom or dad is serving there.  Our kids just know that mommy and daddy will be leaving them for 10 days to take our high school friends to camp to hear the Gospel.  But this last weekend...we got to take Emma and Liam with us to camp!!! We took a group of our  high school friends to Sharptop Cove to serve on Work Crew (serving, cleaning, etc.), and Emma and Liam went with us.

It was such a blessing!  I can hardly even put it into words.  They had so much fun running around camp, playing on the playground and they both even hiked to the top of Sharptop Mountain with us.
But the most incredible blessing was having them serve with us.  Emma was amazing!! It meant so much to see her servant's heart all weekend.  She cleaned tables, set tables, vacuumed, anything she could help do.  And Liam did a great job, too.

Young Life has always been a huge part of Brad and mine's lives.  And we want our kids to be a part of that too.  Mostly, we want our kids to know what it means to put God first, to serve and love others and to follow Christ.  I think they both saw that this weekend.

Emma working so hard!

Liam setting tables

On top of Sharptop Mountain

The whole group