YQ 2009!

Wow. This weekend was insane. Sooo good! Soo worth every minute of immature teenagers running around, feeling completely exhausted emotionally and physically, and having no time or space to myself. I am incredibly glad that I chose to do Here 4 U; it was so much fun. We had our own little head quarters in the library, we got to go to the front of the meal lines, we got to do a bunch of odd jobs and crowd control jobs, we got to go into the chapel whenever we wanted to, we got fed and hung out like a big family, and we pretty much just got to feel important all weekend. Even if it meant being on call 24/7, getting a maximum of 4 hours of sleep each night (mine was more like 3 each night), and spending all day in the crowds of youth groups from all across Canada. But, oh man, I would come back next year just to be able to do here 4 U again.

Friday we pretty much welcomed people and shuttled them to dorms from noon until supper. The kickoff after that was a highlight - so many teenagers excited to be here for a weekend along with a ton of college students excited to have them. For the mainstage sessions Downhere led worship. So good. And so surreal that they were like right in front of me. Jared Herd spoke and he did a great job. That night Red and Brit Nicole did a concert. It was loud and hard work to man our water stations and lasted until 2:00am, but it was exciting in its own way.

Saturday was a bunch of main sessions and option times. A group named the Flying Wallendas were here and did tightrope walking and trapeze type flying; they were amazing! Last night Downhere did a concert/praise party thing. I only saw half because I was busy taping off areas for luggage to be organized this morning, but it was great. It didn't go as late, but a friend, Nicole, and I went to the 'all-night' cafeteria from 1:30 until 3:00 with the girls that stayed in my room. We played Dutch Blitz and then chatted with Nicole for a bit. At 5:00am we both had to wake up again and do an hour of dorm patrol. That was h-a-r-d; everything in me hurt with tiredness, but again, it was all worth it.

This morning we had to meet with Here 4 U again at 8:00am and get to work at guarding luggage and taking select things down. From like 11:30 until 2:30 we were busy cleaning everything up...it went by pretty quickly and was kind of fun. I then marched back to my room and climbed into bed for 2 hours. I just had supper and I could easily fall right back asleep, but unfortunately I have 3 midterms this week. I think I'll just do a bit of studying and then go to sleep at like 8:00.