The End of an Era

Twelve years ago, God used the ministry of Young Life to bring Jay and I together. We met on the bus heading for a ski trip...Jay a leader with the East Hills, me a volunteer leader with the North Hills. The rest, as they say...is history. Fast forward quite a few years....

While pregnant with our Joe, we had to convert the home office (i.e. the smallest 3rd bedroom known to man) into a sweet, cozy nursery. What to do with all of our office type stuff? What to do? Since we never used the garage for its intended car storing purpose, we decided to convert it to an office and the wasted space above the garage into a storage loft. Well, that loft filled quickly with all things Young Life. Need 500 bendy straws? Adult diapers? An accordion? A costume suitable for a ninja, 80's rocker, elderly man or woman? Maybe a set of bowling pins, or a sound system?

With Jay as the Area Director for the East Hills, our house was the epicenter for Young Life related "stuff". We've hosted countless Campaigners (Bible study), Leadership meetings, and Club (weekly outreach). I would never be able to count how many high school kids have come through our front door, back door and on a few occasions...a window. If our walls could talk, they would tell stories of rejoicing things like getting a full scholarship into college all the way to a sentence of probation with time served.....mourning things like the loss of a parent to the loss of a dating relationship. We have prayed, taught and learned. We have been truly blessed.

Now that God has called Jay in a new direction and we patiently seek His will, we needed to find a new home for all the stuff we've collected over the last decade. A local church has been kind enough to let us use their basement as a storage area.

* Editor's note: Young Life is still going strong out here...in fact our area is at an awesome camp property in Virginia. If you feel lead to pray, check out Courtney's blog for a daily prayer request.*

Our house may no longer hold all the costumes and props, but I think it will keep the memories for awhile. Here's a peek at the clean out process....









The last 2 pictures of Trey are strictly to prove that when a baby is put in the house to get out of the sun and is quiet for too long...something is up. Trey deftly swiped a forgotten juice box off the table, squeezed it onto his tray then tried to suck up the juice.....

And we may have kept a few choice costume pieces, a batting helmet with a bucket screwed to the top, and a rubber chicken....because that's just fun. I have another post locked and loaded as to what we did with the now empty storage space. Until next time...