Last night we celebrated the first year of CHOSEN.
It has been an entire year since I stood at our TLC Celebration with a clipboard and begged our counselors to please sign up to be part of club. It didn’t have a name. We didn’t have any idea how many teens would participate. We didn’t really know what it would look like or what we would do. I’m not even sure we had determined a regular meeting day or time.
Last summer we fell on our knees, there was a whole lot of prayer - asking the Lord for wisdom and direction for this new ministry, to give the caregivers willing hearts to bring their teens to this new club, for teens to be excited to attend, for creative ideas that would be fun, and as we moved toward September, it started to come together…invitations went out, phone calls were made, official plans for our VERY FIRST CLUB were made.
That first Saturday we arrived and waited in anticipation not really knowing how it would all turn out. The first week we had a total of 7 teens attend - I went home and cried praising the Lord for His miraculous gift and officially allowing us to be a ministry! I really couldn’t believe we did it.
CHOSEN existed.
Over the course of this first year we grew tremendously and continued to see the Lord move in our midst… in total our stats are staggering to me…
23 Leaders
16 Teens
1 teen who came to club and had never been to TLC…he came to camp with us this summer for the first time
1 mentor / mentee pair
9 Club meetings
Games, Crafts, & Celebrations Galore
We learned a lot…
- Costco Pizza is the absolute CHEAPEST way to feed hungry teenagers
- There is no such thing as too much candy
- Our teens actually DO like chili, they just hadn’t ever heard of it before!
- A game involving shooting KIX cereal out your nose produces a shocking amount of anxiety - ask Lauren Sopp
- 245 Easter eggs really isn’t very many
- Running on a gym floor can have serious consequences - sorry Connie!
- It’s really all about the Starbucks gift card
- Cheezballs stick to shaving cream JUST FINE
- Don’t ever let a boy hit the piñata first - it’s super anticlimactic when the piñata busts open on the first crack
- Potlucks and homemade meals and sitting at one long table really can make you feel like a family
- When prepping for club, always ALWAYS go to the dollar store - it contains treasure beyond compare
- There is no prize quite like a 1LB. bag of skittles
- Dessert is an absolutely must - whether cupcakes, cookies, ice-cream, or CAKE it will undoubtedly get devoured
There was so much laughter throughout this first year of club and each month I would go home thinking about how it truly is the sweetest sound. As I stood in front of our leaders last night to celebrate all the Lord has done, I felt humbled, honored, and entirely inadequate to express my thanks. So many amazingly dedicated and generous leaders gave up so much time - poured their hearts into club and loved these teens so very well.
My words feel empty, but the teens are thankful - and their words do hold some weight…their gratitude wrecks me and makes every single ounce of effort worth it.
“I actually liked every moment I’ve spent at club.”
“Everything about club was good - all the games were fun, the snacks were good, everything was great. CHOSEN was really awesome!”
“Thank you for club. It made my life so much happier!”
“I loved coming to every CHOSEN club. It was so fun and I thank all the staff for all the help and support you guys gave us.”
It’s time to start prepping for year 2…for another chapter in this great adventure - it is full of joy - some tears - and ridiculous fun. Undoubtedly the Lord is at work and I will praise Him loudly for allowing us to spend time with these teens and prayerfully make some small difference in their lives by shining His love and reminding them on a monthly basis they are loved and CHOSEN by God and by us. This is the good stuff…so HERE WE GO!
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