Hi,

     The next time you see one of our crack youth staffers you need to shake their hand, pat them on the back, and give them a hug. Now technically you need to always do this because we have the best youth staff anywhere. I can't begin to tell you what a joy it is to come to work every day and seeing them in action. They are creative and they relate to your youth in amazing ways. I am blessed to have them in my life.

     Now back to why you need to love on our staff, as if you need a reason. This week we have been having our early morning Holy Week Bible Studies at the Refuge. I do love these Bible Studies. It is a time for us to gather with our youth and share breakfast, and have a short word from The Word. As always, I am blown away by how faithful our youth are for these times at the Refuge. The high school group had a low of forty six youth on Monday to a high of over sixty on Wednesday for an average for the four days of over fifty five at least. We also had between thirty and thirty-five middle school youth each morning. A great showing for sure.

     Your amazing youth staff worked above and beyond the call of duty this week because they not only got up early to be with your youth but to also cook some great breakfasts each morning. Now my sweet wife's alarm goes off every morning at 5:30 am so she can get up and get ready for school. I don't always get up then, but I often get up and read the paper and watch the news for a while before I jump in the shower. Getting up every morning this week in the fives or sixes was not terribly hard for us old guys on staff, but it was a giant commitment for the younger types on our staff. They all work long and hard and stay up late, so early mornings are not normal for them.

     We had a great week. Of course the reason why is that this is a holy week. Each morning we would remind the youth what this week was all about. We would retell some of the stories from the Gospels that happened this last week of Jesus' life. We gave each youth a rock like year's past that had a cross marked on it. We told the youth to remember these three things:

First, to carry the rock around to show others that we are not ashamed to be one of His own. Secondly, to let the cross on the rocks remind us of the cross of Jesus Christ. We cannot get to the glorious resurrection on Sunday, without the events of Friday. And finally, to let the rock remind us of the huge stone that was rolled away on that Easter Sunday when Jesus rose from the dead. We gave out over one hundred and thirty rocks I would guess.

     Worship as a family this week on Easter Sunday no matter where you are. There will be a church somewhere close to wherever you are and I suspect that they will have an Easter service. If you are in town, be at one or more of our glorious services. There will be a sunrise service at the Refuge. Daniel Irving will be leading our worship and Mark and Rob Bogart will be doing the music. If you come to this service you can do what I do and then go over the church and go to one or more of the services in "big church". Of course, the journey will be having a special service too.

                            Happy Easter!


                            Steve