Every year, we take our youth group to an annual youth conference with all of the other Assembly of God youth groups in the state of South Carolina. It is an event that we always look forward to. The past several years the conference has been held in Myrtle Beach, SC. The event is kicked off on a Friday night with service. After that, there is usually some sort of late night activity and then it is wrapped up with another session on Saturday. Dismissal is around noon- we would ordinarily grab lunch and then head home. That’s right, less than 24 hours.

We decided this year that we would change up our usual routine for this trip. First of all, we decided to stay an extra night and make it a weekend long trip…. fantastic choice! Secondly, we opted to rent a house so that we could all stay together versus dealing with a bunch of hotel rooms! Both of these choices made the weekend even more fun! Otis and I have said that we don’t think that we will ever go back to the way it was before!!

This was our amazing view-

We had a wonderful time at the actual event! Great worship… great speakers….. fun at the late night activity…. it was all phenomenal! It is always so good to see other friends who serve across the state that we may not get to see very often!

The late night activity was three hours at the Fun Warehouse! A group of us who spent many of our teenage years skating were looking forward to that option at the fun warehouse! This place had laser tag, go karts, skating, and an arcade!

Since we had an extra night, we took the group to the pirates voyage dinner show. I had never been. It was the first weekend of the “Christmas show”. It was so much fun!! I couldn’t recommend it more!! It worked out great for a group our size— offering dinner and entertainment in one place!

Sunday morning, the leaders got up and made a big breakfast for all of the students. After everyone ate, we came together and had our own little worship and prayer service. It is always so sweet to me to feel the Holy Spirit in such an intimate setting like that. To hear the voices singing over the music is refreshing to my soul. It always makes my heart happy. We had some meaningful worship and some powerful prayer time. In fact, we almost went past the time that we were supposed to be out of the house because we were in the moment and lost track of time!

I love these teenagers dearly. Sometimes they might drive me crazy, but I couldn’t love them more. I’m so thankful and honored that this is the calling that the Lord placed on our lives! Any weekend that we can love on these guys and impacts are made in their lives is a weekend well worth it!!