Great evening

Last night I had the wonderful privilege of performing a wedding ceremony for one of my favorite youth from a few years ago. I became her youth minister when she was only in 6th grade. Now she is a 20 year old. The time flies and you look back and wonder at times what good you did. Did we make a difference? Have we helped to teach them the Word? Then you get the honor to perform a wedding and see how great they turned out.

I know you are not suppose to have favorites in youth ministry. It is hard when you have a select group of teens that are always there and ready to minister and learn. These are the kids that turn out even when there is nothing "fun" happening. They are the ones that ride in the church van with 2 or three when you are going to do mission work. I wouldn't say the work favorite. I call them the "three". Jesus had many disciples that followed him and 12 that he invited to follow him most everywhere. Then there were the "three". Peter, James and John at times we blessed to follow Jesus a little closer.

I am not saying I am Jesus in any way. I am saying that at times in my ministry I worked with youth that went the extra distance. They worked during church clean up days, went on mission trips, showed up for straight up hard bible study and reached out to other youth. Molly Fender was just that type of youth.

The evening was great, the food at Patti's was wonderful and my date for the evening was stunning. The kids stayed over at my parents for the evening and I had date night with my wife. We talked, had a wonderful meal, shared time with past friends and watched TV. That was much needed. I am sure my kids had a great time as well. Abbi told us yesterday to not come to pick them up early in the morning. She said we needed to come later in the day because she wanted to stay at Pawpaws and Nana's longer.