Hard to describe...

that's how this post is going to start out.  I haven't blogged in awhile, Carrie has been keeping the world updated with our boring details of everyday life.  OK, so maybe a new niece isn't exactly boring, but once you've seen one.....

This past week was Retreat at our school.  We had survived 2 of them already, and we knew that we were in for another week of pure exhaustion.  It's hard work entertaining teenagers! 

This week turned out to be no different and by Saturday night we were wasted.  Throughout the week our guest speaker kept telling us about the great conversations he was having with some of the students, and we were definitely encouraged by this.  Carrie and I have been praying hard for our favorite "Atheist", and Sunday morning we found out what God had been up to. 

Sunday morning is a chance for students and staff to get up and give a comment or two about what they learned or enjoyed about the week.  A few staff got up, shared about being re-energized, a student got up and talked about how she had been encouraged to forgive her parents and grandparents, Carrie got up and shared how impressed she was with the growth of some of the kids, and then...our favorite "Atheist" got up. In his quiet understated he told the student body that he now believed there definitely was a God, and he was on a path to find out more....and the world turned upside down.  And this is the part that is hard to describe...

Let's just say that when it was all over there wasn't a single staff member with dry eyes, and over a third of our students had shared.  Our "Second in command Atheist" stood up and also stated that God was real, and how giving up fighting God was the best feeling ever.  A third student stood up announced he had challenged God that if God was real He would make those two guys Christians!  Now that they were professing to believe in God he had to keep his end of the bargain and find out more about this "Christian thing"  and from there it just spiraled.

Our speaker just stood there as the students came...no hype no "Hallelujahs" just the occasional "anyone else"...and they kept coming. 3 more students stood up and outright apologized to fellow classmates and staff, and asked for forgiveness as the tears flew!  One of the group leaders stood up and through a river of tears told his guys what this meant to him to see them taking these huge steps, and how hard this past year had been dealing with their negativity toward God, and how it felt like they would never get it.  As he sat down  the student behind him tapped his shoulder and whispered in his ear "I want to become a Christian"  The poor groupleader who hadn't actually wiped off the first set of tears stands back up and without saying anything hands the mic to the student.  no-one has words ...and finally the student simply says "I want You in my life.  Take me."

If anyone wasn't crying yet, this pretty much did it for the rest of them.  By the end we had guys who were fighting, hugging each other, and everyone looking pretty much shell-shocked.  God's carnage continued outside of the chapel  and we didn't actually leave for home until 1:30 because "Atheist #1" was in the bathroom talking with another student who just realized that his world had been turned upside down!  Upon asking him what had happened in the washroom, our "24 hr newly created Christian"  said in the most dazed and confused voice " I don't know ..... I think he just converted". 

Youth work can be a pretty unrewarding career choice at times, and then God comes along and stirs the pot.  Never again will we ask for such small miracles.  We had been praying for just one student to turn, and God took that and expanded upon it in a big way with over a third of our students making steps toward God in one way or another.  We could not have imagined the big picture, but God did, and this week we got to see just how creative and big He is.