A Good Weekend

As promised, I am trying to stay more up to date with my blog posts.  These past four days have been very good, and I thought that you would be interested in hearing about them.

To begin with, we finished our series about Doubt here at elevate.  It was called Doubt it out.  For the past four weeks they have been discussing how doubt is not a bad thing when it is dealt with properly.  We decided that for the last week of the series we would do a little workshop.  The students got to pick from one of 3 common doubts that Christians have about their faith.  They then split up into groups and each had their own session.  

For the workshop, we went through the process with the students and taught them how to research and dig deeper with their question whenever they have a doubt.  We started the process by teaching them how to look up specific passages in Scripture.  Their Bibles had concordances, so this was a huge help.  I had the opportunity to teach them what a concordance was, and how to use it.  We then gave them the chance to use the concordance to find their own verse.  

Saturday's group seemed to have a difficult time understanding how to use it.  This was mostly our fault because the students didn't seem to understand that this was an interactive workshop.  But, we got through it, and I'm sure the students learned a little from the experience.

Saturday night my family arrived in the area.  They had just been to one of my brother's basketball games near South Bend, and they were heading up to the Wisconsin Dells to watch some more of my brother's basketball games.  I took them to a restaurant nearby called Jersey's.  (And by took, I mean let them pay for and drive us there.  I just showed them how to get there.)  It was really good.  I stayed with them in their hotel room Saturday night, and left for church from there on Sunday.  

First service on Saturday went really well.  The kids really seemed to like the game I had taught them.  For our workshop, the students did really well with the activities we led them through.  It was a really awesome moment.  It's always good to know that you are being effective, and it was evident during this service that they were getting it.  

My family came to Elevate for the second service on Sunday.  It was cool to have them there so they could see how we run things here.  The workshop went ok, not as well as first service, but I think it went well all-in-all.  After service, my family and I headed to the Wisconsin Dells.  It took about 3 hours to get there, then we arrived at the hotel, and I got some much needed rest.

Sunday evening we went to see the Tommy Bartlett Ski Show.  Some cool tricks, but really cheesy entertainment.  Also, one of the performers almost died!!  For real, ask me about it.  Also, one of the coolest things at the show was this guy called Dave the Horn Guy.  It was really awesome.  Check him out at www.davethehornguy.com!

On Monday we went out to breakfast, and rode the Ducks with Ben's Basketball team.  It was fun, but I got wet.  We waited around for the rest of the morning, until Ben's team had their game.  We were only able to watch one game because we had the schedule confused.  After the game, my family and I headed back.  They dropped me off at Willow, and headed home.

All-in-all it was a really good weekend.  A lot happened, but it was great to see my family, and some familiar faces.  When I got back to the Swofford's I was super tired, so I crashed and took a 3-hour nap.  That was also good.

It's only been a few days since my last blog post, so prayer requests haven't really changed that much.  I do have one praise though.  Darah finally has found a job!  She is currently employed at Target, and she loves it so far.  I will try to post every Tuesday or Wednesday, but no promises.

Peace,

Jake