We returned last night from one of my favorite youth group trips of the year. Each fall I pull juniors and seniors out of school to visit a couple of colleges. This time, it was Moody (my alma mater) and Wheaton College.
In the most technical sense, the weekend went off without a hitch. The students got the tours, got to ask questions, and got to see what kind of cool places they could get a solid Christian education. There is a lot of value in that.
But dont think that this is only about checking out schools. It’s absolutely about investing in and spoiling my most influential students! For 3 days we hung out, drove, had fun, and annoyed each other. And it was a blast. The road trip part is always fun as I try my best to make an idiot of myself at 70 MPH in the church van. We also crashed at my cousins house. Kudos to Maria for always being a willing and fantastic hostess. I also exposed them to my old youth group, http://www.alliedforce.org, and they got to meet a lot of my friends both at Calvary Memorial as well as Moody. Then I took them to Johnnies… which serves the most fattening and incredible Italian Beef sandwhiches in the world. If you’ve never been there, you’ve never experienced perfection. It’s like the first time you havea Krispy Creme when all you even knew about glazed donuts was the ones at the grocery store. They are worth the road trip to Chicago alone. We also checked out a place in boys town called, Ann Sathers. They make the best and most fattening cinammon rolls in the world.
Something that happened that was shocking and funny at the same time in Chicago.
- My guys got hit on by a real live gay man in boys town. It was too funny and quite a teachable moment. It happened in an instant… so no damage was done.
- We saw gorrilas on Michigan Avenue. It was one of the funniest sites I had ever seen in the city. I’m glad they were there with me!
Of course, I can’t wait to do this trip again in 2005. Who knows? Maybe in a few years we’ll all be visiting some of our graduates!
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