Drunk on the Beach

 This is a funny story. And if you know my dad, he is probably the best storyteller in the family and listening to him tell it just does not compare to any way in which I would be able to tell the story. So, I recorded him telling the story to my mom on the phone and that is my skeleton for the following story.

So we went out to dinner with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Brian and the kids. Nice place in old town San Diego. And we decided to hang out at their rental house for a little while afterward. Not being loaded down with three children (boys under twelve, no less.) We beat them to the house and were locked out. So me and Dad are hanging out on the boardwalk and Cam goes off on the beach, which was right there.

And he's sitting on the beach, lies down in the little hollow where the boys' big hole used to be (now filled in by the wind.) And he's just watchin' the stars and hanging out.

A little ways down, there were these college kids who were obviously drunk and one of them says, "Look! There's a dude on the beach!" and they're laughing and pointing at Cam and being drunk. They let well alone for a little while and then Cam gets up and he's packing the sand down to make the hollow space more comfortable. One of the guys shouts, "He's digging his own bed!" And they all laugh at him like he's some kind of fascinating zoo animal.

Eventually they see us and they ask, "Hey! Is that your buddy?"

Dad goes, "That's my son."

"hahahahaha. I remember my first time..."

Dad mutters "whatever" under his breath.

"...Except I was naked!"

We just kind of ignored the guys. But dad was like, "I love drunk people I don't know."

So they're hanging out and they start dragging out the bikes to go cruising down the boardwalk. They come rolling towards us and the one guy (I know I keep saying "one guy" but there were a lot of them and hard to distinguish.) and he says, "Is that really your son?"

Dad's all, "Yeah, that's my twelve year old son."

"He must be really drunk."

And very calmly dad says, "Um, no. My twelve year old son."

"Is he okay?"

Dad says, "Yeah, he's find. He's just doing what twelve year olds do."

The guy says "Alright man." And they go off on their wobbly bicycles, while me and dad sat there chuckling and Cam, still laying in the sand, had not a clue as to the conversation that took place.

Club Santa Rita!

Have I talked about our awesome youth ministry before? If you want to hear my shaky voice speak about it in front of our congregation, go here. If you'd rather see awesome pictures with awesomer commentary, read on!

I really wasn't sure about this ministry when it began. Not because I didn't like the Morgans, but because I loved Jacob so much and he played a very influential role in my life, and it was hard to "let go" of that relationship, as I saw it.

But I let go of my expectations and I was pleasantly surprised when I put effort into the ministry and allowed myself to enjoy being a part of it instead of sulking over the "loss" of Jacob. (Again, as I saw it. He is still around, just not as present in my life these days.)

So last semester, we talked a lot about love and how to love people. We defined it as four things: Go, See, Have Compassion, and Act. And Jesus did each of these things throughout his ministry on earth. We talked about loving people and seeing them the way God sees them and pursuing relationships withe people, not because we want to convert them. But because we love them. Because God loves them. And because as Christians, Christ's love ought to overflow out of us and into them. And it is a beautiful thing when that happens.

The Morgans encouraged us to use these four aspects of love in our relationships with people and work on building a few new relationships. So we did.

And then this semester, we're doing a crazy awesome event called Club Santa Rita! It is based a lot off of the young life model. We play games, sing songs, do funny skits, and in the end, there's a short little message.

But the whole thing is all about the relationships. It's all about loving our friends the way God loves them. And it's been a lot of fun.

 We've done three club nights so far! A disco night

 A regular club night.

 And Country/Hick night!

 Jake looked amazing in his country get-up! It was difficult to take him seriously!

We've been meeting on highschool campus and it has been LOADS of fun just being goofy with the kids. Everyone is a great sport! This week we played "Do you love your neighbor?" "Mad Gab" and we had a Cricket Spittin' competition.We do crazy stuff and it's awesome!

This whole ministry has really grown on me over the last year and I have learned a lot while participating in it. I am so grateful to everything the Morgans have done for us and all the effort they have put into it. Youth ministry is so cool!