Tico Tuesday, June 2nd

When was the last time you pulled a voluntary all-nighter? I'm pretty sure I hadn't stayed up all night for something other than paper writing or packing ever since high school. That changed Friday night. The young adults from my church here put together a night full of worship, prayer, games, food, and fellowship. Well, I must confess I didn't make it all the way through. I had to crash on the floor for a while. I must be getting old. ;-) Please pray for the young adults as we seek to establish ourselves as an intentional ministry.


(Check out the sweet new sign we got for church! I tried to get a picture from Friday to send you, but no dice. This is a good picture to see too!)

Read the blog to learn about my high school all night adventures http://smithcj1.blogspot.com/

When I was in jr. high and high school I was heavily involved in my church's youth group and every year in the fall we participated in the Superbowl (the Word of Life one, not the silly football one :-P ). We'd go to a Pirates game, Portland Pirates that is. Not those pitiful Pittsburgh Pirates. And these Pirates play HOCKEY!! What else do you expect in Maine? Anyway, we'd go to a game and after it ended all the youth groups that had come for the Superbowl would stay and listen to a presentation of the Gospel. Then there would be a version of “Let's make a deal” (Sorry, learning Spanish has made a mess of my English capitalization) in which basically they would call people down and give them prizes. There would also be foosball contests and bowling with frozen turkeys and sled pulling races on the ice. Those were always hilarious to watch!

Then, things would break up and half the youth groups would be sent bowling and the other half roller skating. After 2.5-3 hours we'd switch and then finally go home and sleep. Those were fun times. I would usually get a second (and sometimes a third wind) and in my naïve, sleep deprived classic “little sister-ness” I would run around to everyone and make sure they were awake. Now that I think about that I'm sure it was very obnoxious. Oops! I was afraid I might get one of those crazy bursts of adrenaline this past Friday, but as you can tell, that was definitely not an issue. I would have been very put out (Princess Bride!!) if someone had obnoxiously tried to keep me awake. I supposed I would have deserved it though for all the times I tortured others. There's a picture of God's mercy for you!

Anyway, one year when we were riding home on the bus and all but about 5 of the people on it were asleep somebody happened to look out the window and see freshly fallen snow on the ground. Within seconds everyone was awake admiring our October snowfall (remember, this was in Maine. October snow did fall from time to time). When we arrived at church there was a frenzied snowball fight before peoples' parents arrived and we entered into many hours of much needed slumber. It was pretty funny. I think peoples' aim was seriously affected.

Another year they they added another option along with roller skating and bowling-a gym full of those hilarious inflatable thingies. I don't know how to describe them. Just think of the biggest plastic toys you can; some inflatable and some just cushy, and one of those trampolines you can get strapped into and do flips on in a more parentally approving manner- and there you have that place. I remember putting on a huge padded sumo wrestling suit and getting my butt whipped by my friend Frittany. My head piece kept on falling off and my socks made me slip all over the mat. It was crazy!

My last couple years of high school we didn't do the Superbowl. We'd been winning the “largest youth group” prize for a few years in a row so we started doing our own all-nighter. It was pretty cool. We'd go to a concert and then I think we went to the field house of a local college and had all sorts of activities-including a climbing wall and games and...honestly I can't really remember. I know there was a LOT of junk food though. Oh the life of a teen!