MS Overnight

Every year the middle schoolers participate in an overnight adventure. The reason for an overnight trip is for the students to bond together early in the year. It's the first big trip that the 6th graders get to go on. This year we took  them to a youth hostel in a nearby city. I was in charge of arranging transportation and snacks.We had 12 parent drivers, and 21 dozen cookies. Thankfully transportation worked well and all students arrived safely at the hostel, and back at the school again today.


There wasn't enough room in the hostel for all the MS staff to stay overnight, so there was a bunch of us who just went for the evening.


The students ate cookies and played outside when we first arrived. It had been a long week at school so we gave them an hour or two to just run off some steam. After a bit we had them sit on the outside of a court. The game was called "rolling dodgeball". Groups of students would stand in the middle and try to last the longest without getting hit by the rolling dodge balls from students sitting along the edge. After all the students had tried, they insisted that the teachers play!

Later that evening, after dodgeball, capture the flag and dinner we took the kids down the trail to where there was an outdoor fire pit. A group of girls came up to us before we started worship and told us they had met two girls from the other group staying at the hostel and asked if we could sing some songs in German. The worship leaders for that night were the couple that I co-teach chapel band with. They led us in English and German worship songs. It was a great opportunity for our students to minister to others in our community. One even asked if we had a German Bible that we could give to them. What an encouragement it was to see our students loving and telling others about Jesus. Later we had a time of devotion, more singing and then of course time for s'mores! One 6th grade came up to me  and said "my mouth is so happy right now!" After cleaning up we headed home. The kids ended the evening with a movie, games and a late night hike. This morning they went on a longer hike, cleaned up their rooms and headed back to the high school to be picked up. All in all, a great time with our amazing middle school students!