Orange County Dodgeball Tournament 2015

Throughout each semester, we have a number of events that add some adventure into our group.  Last year, the annual OC Dodgeball Tournament was a fantastic night of games, team building, and winning (of course).

This year, we were able to take a group of 15 students and 5 leaders to represent South County.  The guys dressed to kill, the girls dressed for style.  We arrived early and began sizing up some of the other teams: San Clemente, Irvine, Tustin, and so on.  After some verbose trash talking, we began the fun of throwing rubber balls at one another as hard as we could.

In the end, we didn't win any championships, but we did all win free ice cream!  It was an evening to remember, and a great night to be in YoungLife.

Ladera Ranch WyldLife: Bigger or Better

From a penny, to a dog ramp, to a snowboard...

Bigger or Better was so much fun last night! We had about 40 kids join us at Founders and then broke up into teams of 5-8 kids and spread out through Ladera. It was such a good night on so many different levels.

Matt Wright got a new bike... he was amped!

Having the group split up into smaller groups, each with at least one leader, gave us the opportunity to get to know kids better. The team I was with were kids that I hadn't gotten the chance to hang out with a lot before this. 

We traded a chocolate Christmas tree ornament for this iPod!

We were also able to have conversations with different people in the community about what WyldLife was and what we were doing at their door. So many of the people we talked with were excited to know that something like WyldLife was happening in Ladera Ranch. Most of them were excited about finding something funny for the game.

Rolling in the golf cart

It was pretty incredible to see what some of the teams came back with! One team came back with a fully functional bike, a scooter, and a toddler bike. Another team came back with a mattress, a dog house, and a hockey stick. The 6th grade boys team were able to snag a whole case of snack-packs and a plastic candy cane that there were super excited about. The all girls team were able to somehow get a golf cart (I'm thinking it might have been a pre-made deal)! The 8th grade boys team got a really nice baseball bat, a ton of candy, and a giant lacrosse goal. My team came back with a complete snowboard and a fully functional iPod.

It was great seeing everyone have so much fun last night

On a whole, the night was blast, kids and leaders got to know each other much better, and we were able to do more work in earning the right to speak into their lives with the truth and love of Jesus. These events go so far in getting into these kids' lives. As we show them we enjoy doing fun things, and letting them do things they haven't done before, we earn their trust, and end up getting the opportunity to help them make better choices in life and share the love of Jesus with them as we go. 

The 6th graders were so psyched on this case of pudding!

First Ladera Ranch Campaigners

Our first campaigners meeting was such a great time. These kids braved Storm Watch 2014 to come and have breakfast, and talk a little about Jesus. We even had 4 new faces come out, and our first girl!

We will be meeting every Friday morning at the park connected to LRMS at 7:15 to eat doughnuts, talk about life, and learn a little bit more about Jesus and following him.

I am very excited about what God is doing in Ladera Ranch, and so thankful for this morning. Going into this meeting I had been feeling a lot of pressure and doubting myself... It was so good to experience God's love, care, and sovereignty this morning. It was such a wonderful reminder that God can and will do so much more than we expect, that he cares about kids so much more than I do, and that he really can use us at our weakest to do really wonderful things for his Kingdom... what a gift.

So thank you for praying for WyldLife in Ladera Ranch. I'm so excited to see what God has in store.