for the love of God

Today, one of our "yutes" performed at Fine Arts Festival. Eric and I brought a host of other yutes up to cheer him on during his performance, and we continued on through the "celebration service" where winners were announced and the "meritorial award" winners performed their gigs on site.

It was pretty cool--I'd never been involved growing up since I lived in Africa--and even though our guy didn't place this year, I really hope we can push this to our group for next year. Best part of today, besides hearing our guy rock his performance (he SHOULD have placed!!!) was watching how he took not placing and going on to nationals. He at least didn't show his disappointment, and he took it like a champ. Good news: he's a sophomore this year, so he has two more years, and a whole lot of time to polish his work and style. Also, he's only been writing since about November of 2011--and he's amazing already!

A lot of the students that come to our youth group are wicked talented. We have dancers and singers and musicians and artists and one of the gals placed second last year in vocal talent, was invited to nationals, and didn't enter this year. (WHAT?!) That said, my creative juices started flowing, and I really want to push these guys and gals to be confident in their talents, to show their talents to the world, and to use them to glorify God.