The State reports on Raymond Middleswarth

Great article in the State paper about Ray, his wrestling and his priorities. Click here to read all about it.

Ice Skating Trip

These are the skating pictures from our Feb. 1 trip to Irmo.
We skated at Plex rink in Irmo.
Grayson, Ethan & Joey in the TimeOut box:
Joey & Grayson collided.

Ethan & Grayson, chillin'


Libby, a friend, Ross, Joel
"Grampsy" x 2, Eva watching in corner

Grayson, charging across the ice with bold confidence:

Patti's got skills.

B & Marj


Joel, who actually could skate much better than this photo implies:

Here's Josh in one of his finer moments.

We had three of our Christ Central friends join us, too.

Ethan. Which is better, his pose or expression?


Leave a comment about this photo. What is going on?

Eva, the big star.

I didn't see Ross on the ice at all.

I mostly saw Ross with Tom sitting and talking.

What a ride.

Final Ski Trip Post

One more thing about the ski trip.
Ms. Christie's schedule
WORE US OUT!








Ski Trip Bible Study

We began & ended each day on the ski trip with a time of Praise & Worship and a group Bible Study. It was fun to get the whole gang together and recap or plan our day and it was inspiring to hear their thoughts about following God and how it impacts their day 2 day living.
Tom led the songs with Will Rutland and Raymond Middleswarth on guitars. Acoustic guitar, majestic mountains, cozy log cabin..... you can't beat that.


Pastor Billy was teaching from The Tough Sayings of Jesus, by Michael Kelley, a young writer and editor for Lifeway. The study was "in your face" tough, a daring look at Jesus' sayings that addresses the tough questions we often leave unasked. We wanted the kids the know that faith doesn't mean not asking questions. The study also included the historical and cultural aspects that surrounded the people Jesus interacted with. It was interesting to see the parallels to our lives today.


The Bible study time and the spiritual atmosphere laced throughout the whole trip is really the whole point of the trip. It's spiritually refreshing to get away from the normal pace of life, away from our peers, away from the tv and electronic games. I think we all came back refreshed, pumped, challenged. It is such a blessing to watch the youth grow and to hear them speak up and share their lives.
Here's a video of some of our singing. I think the praise time was a little weak because we didn't have the written lyrics. Be sure to check out Grayson at the very end of the video. He was really getting into it.

Ski Trip

More on the ski trip, click here.

Youth Ski Trips

There were many church youth groups in Gatlinburg while we were there this past weekend. I had the opportunity to meet a few people from these groups while we travelled the ski lift together. I met a few kids from Columbia/Irmo. So today I was checking out a blog I like in San Francisco and there was a live feed alert from Wagener suggesting other SC blogs. So I followed that link and found a blog post called "Youth Ski Trip 09", so I followed it to see if it would take me back to this blog, to see if it was referring to our youth ski trip.

It wasn't. It was someone from another youth group that went on the same trip we did. Click here to go to that blog.

Youth Ski Trip, '09



We just returned from our Youth Ski Trip to Gatlinburg, TN.
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Billy did a study on "The Tough Sayings of Jesus." Tom, Will and Raymond led the Praise & Worship. It was very powerful. I will say more about that in another, upcoming post.
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We all (35 of us) had a great time and got along well.
There were no legendary fights and no monumental injuries.
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Christie had everything planned out expertly, no time was wasted and nothing was below expectation.
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The youth were well behaved in the restaurants.

The chaperones were well behaved in public.
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Christie took a lot of photos. I mean a LOT.
She even outdoes me.
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We spent a few hours at an arcade. You'll have to read about that on my personal blog in an upcoming post. I definitely have a few things to say about that day.
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And of course, we went skiing. Well. Tom and I did. The others went snow-boarding. We are old school.
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See the top photo for some of the snowboarders and how well they mastered the craft.
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We popped into a Hollywood Star Cars Museum. Now that was interesting. Here are a few of the youth in the Flintstones' Flintmobile. That's Will Rutland with the orange hair. That orange hair was a big help identifying him on the ski slopes.
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Several of the group also went ice skating.
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Here's a wild picture of Joey. I didn't see the skating since I was out on the slopes, but I think he got in the upright position at some point.
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Then there was the afternoon of car racing.
That was.... well.... let's say "competitive."
Fierce.


Connie, Doug and Tom especially got caught up in it. Connie was, well, kicked off the course actually.
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Jackie & I thought it was too cold and not a whole lot different than our normal afternoon drives so we didn't last long.

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Doug really surprised me. I never saw this side of him. The side where he really, really wants victory over the kids.
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Here's my only non-blurry picture of Connie. Don't let the innocent "grandma on a Sunday drive" look fool you.

Our youth group is absolutely a joy to be around. Well mannered, loving towards each other, a great sense of humor and a deep interest in knowing God.

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