Wrap up video!

Here are 2 videos that review what happened throughout the rally.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/101513122
This link plays the official video from the rally itself.  It was played for all the participants at the end of the rally.

This video is what I made to show the church what went on with our teens.


Once again, thank you so much for the thoughts, prayers, and support that you gave the teens for this trip.  I know they all will remember their experience at the rally for a very long time! 

The next rally will hopefully be in 2016! 

Final Day

Our final day was packing up, worship, and lots of driving.  The final worship service was great again.   Here is a video of everyone singing during the service. 

Driving back was once again very long! We watched a few movies and slept. Not too much exciting happened on our bus ride. 


















Here are some more fun pictures from the teens!

I would like to say thank you to all the teens and parents for such a great few days.  Teens - you were so great to work with.  I had no worries or concerns for all the days we were there.  Parents- thanks for letting us take your teens down south with us!  I hope that I will again get to help with another youth rally.  It was such a blessing to worship with great teens! 

The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27

Day 3

All I can say is that my legs hurt from so much walking, but it has been totally worth it.  Here are some things about Friday's activities. 

Our keynote this morning was "No Fear - The Lord Hears and Teaches Me".  This presentation was also amazing.  He focused our attention on having no fear and trusting God when he says to "pick up the snake by the tail".  God is so patient with us, even when we refuse to do what he said or when we blame him for our stupidity.  Lunch and the workshops were very nice.  I know I was very tired during most of the afternoon. I think most of the teens were pretty worn out as well. 

Even though we were all pretty exhausted, the activities at night are not to be missed!  Tonight we got a taste of Knoxville withe a concert from a band named "Aaron Tracy Band".  They mostly played country music, but also added in a few other genres.  I had a great time up in the stands, watching the teens all down by the stage.  Here are some pictures and a video of what went on at the concert! 

After the evening entertainment there is time to go have fun at the HUB.  The HUB is a central location with tons of activities, entertainment, shopping, and food.  In the large tent there has been two acts every night.  Tonight it was an amazing magician, Dan Jaspersen, and a play group called ComedySportz. 

Dan Jaspersen is quite amazing.  He bent this fork without seemingly touching it!  And he can read people's minds.  I couldn't figure out any of the tricks that I saw. 

ComedySportz is kind of like the show "Whose Line is it Anyway".  I didn't get to catch much of this show, but I heard a ton of laughter from the tent whenever they were showing. 

Here is a picture of the boys.  They have been here the whole time!  They just are having too much fun and not taking as many pictures as the girls! 

Our great group after evening reflection!  These are our t-shirts with the rally theme.  No Fear!

Youth Rally (from the teen's perspective)

I asked the teens tonight at reflection what were their thought so far about the rally.  Here are some of them:

"They should have this rally every month"

"Today was very long"

"We are having an awesome time"

"Absolutely fantabulous"

" Koine was better than last time's musical group"

"Water in a can kinda blew my mind"

"The workshop Be an Original was really fun"

"During the workshop of zombies we learned about the origin of zombies and how our lives compare to that of a zombie"  

Here are also some pictures and thoughts from the teens during the first half of the rally.  I can say from seeing these pictures that they are having an absolutely great time!  There may be some stories to go with some of these pictures!

 

Day 2

From what I heard, everyone slept like a rock last night!  So here is day 2, a jam packed awesome day!  

The morning session was led by Pastor Jon Enter.  His keynote speech was called “No Fear – The Lord Shelters Me”.  I really enjoyed this speech.  He was very engaging and had a great message about how God balances our lives in ways that we may not see at the time.  He also encouraged everyone to keep your eyes up in order to keep your life balanced.  

During our lunch break Pastor and I and 2 of our friends went to check out the University of Tennessee football stadium.   We walked right on to the field!  It was pretty great to be standing in the middle of such a huge place! 

After lunch we all went our own ways to 2 workshops.  

During the free times many people decided to swim in the pool.  That was a great idea since it was so hot and humid out.  It was very sad when the down pour came and everyone had to leave the pool.  

Our entertainment tonight was Matt Jernigan who is a comedian, guitarist, and impersonator.  It was so refreshing to me to hear a funny comedian who was clean!   There was no questionable language or content!  Check him out at http://www.mattjernigan.com/

Day 1

We finally arrived on campus.  The bus ride was fine, although very long!  Everyone was ready to get off the bus.  Once we got all the luggage off as well as the teens, the leaders went to get checked in.  Then everyone got showers!  But not the type of showers that everyone really wanted.  It down poured on everyone outside.  I (as a leader getting everyone registered inside) felt so bad that everyone else was sitting outside with the luggage!  We ended up having time to clean up and relax in our rooms before the church service.

 The worship service was an amazing way to start off this rally.  It was in this huge arena!  Here are our teens before the worship service started. 

 The worship service was led by a band called Koine.  I have heard them before and knew that this was going to be great.  As a leader I was drawn right in.  The worship service was a traditional worship service with a TON of music involved.  Most of what Koine sang was familiar hymns but to new-ish melodies.  Check out their website at: http://www.koinemusic.com/

 After the service there were several announcements.  There are 1,666 participants for this year's rally.  Our district, Northern Wisconsin, had the most of all the districts.  There are participants from all 12 WELS districts and Canada!  We also went through rules and regulations and a big welcome!  We were also encouraged to take selfies of ourselves to post to social media.  Now my phone isn't fancy enough for that, but maybe tomorrow I can get some of them that I saw the teens take.

 After we left the arena we all went down to "The Hub" for some entertainment and food.  The girls came up to me and said, "Look, it's water in a can!" (that's what the picture is about) There was pizza, hot dogs, chips, cookies, and more!  The teens could watch the comedy show going on under the tent or participate in a ton of physical activities.  Some of the teens went swimming while others went on the blow up games.  My husband and I had fun eating and catching up with many friends from all over the US that are here.  Pastor met up with some of his catechism class that he taught in Canada when he was a vicar up there a few years ago.

At the end of the night we gather together in our church groups to do one more Bible reflection before bedtime.  Tonight our reflection was about how shame can effect our lives in a negative way and how God's unconditional love is the only remedy for it.  It was so great to see all the teens participating and answering questions. Here we are studying together.  Tomorrow is going to be a jam packed day.  Hopefully everyone will get some sleep, probably more than they did last night on the bus! 

On the road again

Here is our caravan of buses.  There are 6 buses from around the Northern Wisconsin district.  Once they all arrived at the Oasis in Chicago we moved on in a group down to Tennessee. 

This is our bus.  It is the only bus that is blue.  The rest are white, so we can find our bus quickly. 

 While on the bus the teens have mostly been sleeping. Although this picture was taken when they were awake.  I didn't feel mean enough to take a flash picture while they were sleeping.  :-)

For breakfast we stopped at a McDonalds near Indianapolis, Indiana.   One of the workers was walking into work when the 6 buses pulled in.  He did a double take when he saw all the people coming in.  There was also a Meier grocery store where a few people went to buy breakfast.

 We also stopped in Kentucky at a rest stop.  It is funny to see a herd of teens walking together to and from places.

  

Back on the bus Pastor Micheel is the bus Captain.  I haven’t gotten a picture of him with the captain’s hat on, maybe later.  He led a game to get the teens to socialize with each other a bit.