DUDE NIGHT and PJ PARTY a SUCCESS!
Over the weekend, our guys and girls ministries took a step out of our monthly Sunday night meeting times for a special event. Close to 30 teens joines us between the Friday night DUDE NIGHT and the GIRLS PJ PARTY for an awesome time of games, fellowship, and fun. Please pray for these ministries as we look to deepen their reach to the specific needs that the teen guys and girls each face as they seek their identity in Christ. Read the reports below about how the events went down! (Sorry there were no photos from the DUDE NIGHT, we're too cool/forgetful for that kind of thing)

GIRLS PJ PARTY!

What happens when you put 13 pajama-clad, giddy teenage girls in a Youth Room full of pink streamers, pink perfume confetti, and tons of junk food? You have a really great time!

And that's what happened Saturday night at our Girl's PJ Party. As the teens arrived, they had to fork over a personal item to be brought out later for a game of "Whose is it?" They also displayed clothing items they dug out of their closets to create a "store" that they could shop at when they won games. Everyone in the group received stickers that they could put onto anyone who accidentally said the "taboo" words for the night: Any form of the word "boy", any mentione ofa boy's name, or slight reference to the male species would earn you a sticker! Those with no stickers at the end of the night got to go shopping!

A manicure station was set up for those who wanted to pamper themselves. The girls shared lots of laughs playing "Truth or Dare". They could pop a white balloon to find a "Truth" inside, or a pink balloon to disclose a "Dare!"

And what's a PJ Party without junkfood? We ate pizza, cookies, cake, brownies, chips and rootbeer floats before cuddling up with our blankets and popcorn to watch the evening's feature presentation: FIREPROOF. (Emily still can't figure out how they get that equipment on so fast!)

The night ended with FIREPROOF trivia and winners getting a chance to clean out the "store"

DUDE NIGHT
From 7-Midnight this past Friday night, there were certainly places in the church you did not want to be caught without some protective gear for your own safety. 16 of us spent two hours playing some intense basketball: We set up a 3vs3 tournament then broke for some pizza and energy drinks (BOOKOU Berry was THE flavor of choice) before setting up a 5vs5 tournament.

And that's when the real intensity started.

See, capture the flag just isn't quite...well....Man enough for us guys here at Grace. We need to make it even more manly! The teens were split into 4 small teams and were each given 3 balls of ammo. Their mission was to find the hidden flag in a darkened church building and bring it back to the gym to claim victory. Simple enough, right?

The challenge lied in the fact that the other three teams were using their ammo to try and take you out. Essentially we added the element of dodgeball to the Capture the Flag concept and wars would break out in the middle of dark hallways. If you got hit, you had to run outside and touch a light pole before re-entering the game.

Oh and we didn't stop there...Also hidden throughout the church were upgrades to their ammo supply. Nerf guns, softballs, and footballs could be found and used an increased weaponry. Needless to say, it was frightening to get caught in the crossfires (which happened a few times as us adults tried to referee the game). It also seemed much less important to find the flag as it was to try and pound the other teams...After an hour and a half, a team finally won just in time to clean so as to make it as if we were never there :)

Couldn't Dodge Disappointment...

We returned to Messiah College Sunday to defend our championship title. Touting a team of 22 teenagers and 3 adults (Thanks to Jerry Bigelow!!) everyone felt confident and excited to repeat as champs. But as we looked around the gym, we knew the competition was going to be more fierce than last time. Out of 11 teams there, there were bigger and badder looking groups so we knew we'd need to step up our game.

But after our first 4 games, we were sitting at 2-2, a place we'd never been before considering we'd only amassed 2 losses in the past two tournaments combined! But we knew there was still hope because other power house teams were struggling as well. So our fan base cheered us on from the rafters and we pulled ourselves together to play harder.

We won the next two games and positioned ourselves in 3rd place overall, with several teams behind us. We were told that the top 4 teams would make the playoffs and that the regular competition would be cut off at 4:45. We were scheduled to play Mechanicsburg Brethren in Christ next, who had not been beaten all day long. It was getting close to the cut off time and it looked like we may not play them but rather punch our ticket for the playoffs...Then the announcement: "GRACE VERSUS MCBIC ON COURT 3!"

There was a lot of pressure on this game. With a loss, we could possibly lose our spot in the playoffs. But our team had hit its stride after the first four games and we did what no team could do throughout the whole tournament: We beat the undefeated McBic squad. In fact, we not only won, we easily controlled the game. Although it was an intense fight, we took the lead early on and finished with more than half our team still on the court.

But in some sense, we seemed to shoot ourselves in the foot: You see, the time limit for each game was 15 minutes, but it was rare that a game ever pushed the 10 minute mark. That last game against McBic was the longest game of the day, finishing just 30 seconds shy of the 15 minute mark. Victory was assured us about halfway through the game, but we struggled to close the deal, leaving a small group of stragglers from the other team to remain on the court and extend the game.

Needless to say, we returned to the tournament board after the game excited to see who we would face in the first round of the playoffs. But the judges seemed concerned about something and were shifting their papers around trying to decide something. Why weren't they putting up the playoff schedule? What was the problem?!

They determined that there was not enough time to have a 4 team playoff, but the top 2 teams would move straight into the Championship Game. We couldn't believe it. We had just clicked as a team and were poised to enter the playoffs as the team to beat. We may never know whether things would have been different if we had finished that last game sooner, but it was clear after watching the final game that there would have been a great chance that we could have won the championship trophy a second tournament in a row.

It was an unfortunate way to remember that the day was in fact all about a game, that really wasn't important in the end. We had a great day of playing, fellowship and food before spending time worshiping together with the other couple hundred teenagers from youth groups all across the area (including Maryland!)

We'll be looking forward to the tournament in the fall for sure.

Concert Gives Voice to the Voiceless
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Proverbs 31:8

We've all known and read about the terrible history of slave trade in our world. The continent of Africa was ravished for 300 years as their people were stolen from their homes and forced into slavery. Most people would think such evil was simply set in our history books and can't exist in today's civilized world...

It is estimated that 27 million people are currently enslaved worldwide. That is more than double the total number of Africans enslaved during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

It is estimated that 2 children are sold into slavery every minute.

UNICEF now believes that 1.2 billion children are bought and sold annually.

The average value for a slave today is $100. That is equal to, if not less than what most of us spend on our cable bill each month.

What has our world become? Children are being sold into sex slavery before the time they hit their teen years?! It's not difficult to see that the evil in our world is not growing dimmer, but more twisted than ever before.

On Friday February 6th, Ten Shekel Shirt performed a benefit concert at Lancaster Bible College. All the proceeds from the $10 admission tickets and the love offering went towards ending this tragedy. Ten Shekel Shirt was an up and coming band a few years ago, putting out a great worship album with hits such as "Meet with Me", "Ocean" and "Unashamed Love." After being nominated for a Dove aware and selling over 150,000 CDs, their future looked bright. But a trip to the other side of the world changed their course forever.

Lamont Hiebert, the lead singer, took a visit to the some of the brothels in southeast Asia, where children as young as 7 and 8 years old were forced into sex slavery. Coming back, he could not simply be another rock star advocate, but put his music career on hold. He co-founded an organization that works to bring freedom to the children trafficked in our world.

Love 146 works to break this evil through education, awareness, prevention and aftercare for the children enslaved. The concert was an amazing time of music, thought and education about the issue that rarely sees much media coverage. Their new album JUBILEE, released this summer, is filled with songs inspired by the situations these children are facing and the hope that can be found in Christ through His people working to end such injustice.

Please visit LOVE146.org to see and hear more about what you can do to be apart of the solution. Become educated about the evils of our world and unite together with others to bring freedom, hope and the mighty power of God's love to our world.