In my last post I mentioned the Youth Gathering and the vendor booths. Concordia took over the booth area. Concordia is a Lutheran College system and was the title sponsor for the event. Concordia has branches of universities all over the US and elsewhere. I do believe every campus was represented at the event: Nebraska, New York, Texas, New Mexico, St Louis... the list goes on and on and on. At each booth they asked for your information and gave you swag in return. The best swag happened to be this here button. The classic picture of Martin Luther with a bit of photoshopping.
Just about every youth group had some sort of umbrella or stick with a teddy bear stuck to the top so in large crowds you could find your group. One group had this very picture of Martin Luther, 3 feet wide and four feet tall, no joke, on a stick. It was hilarious to see Big Martin's head floating above the crowds throughout the week.
Below was our group's stick-in-the-air, a horsey they named Jeffrey. He wore a glow bracelet for the evening events.
One group had a large tree branch. From a tree. A live tree.
I spent a day going to the youth classes with my group. One of the classes was recognizing christian symbolism in popular fantasy books/movies, in particular Disney. The class title was "Once Upon a Time". They wanted to point out that getting wrapped up in Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight or the Disney princesses was alright but needed to be taken with a grain of sand and seen through the eyes of a christian. For God so loved the world he gave his only son; a women should love her husband like she loves Jesus and a husband should love his wife like Jesus loves the church...so too did sleeping beauty love her prince charming like she loved Jesus. He woke her up from Sin with true love's kiss.
Goofing around in between classes
The nightly mass events were phenomenal. Look at all those Christians!! And color coded too lol
There was a group of dancing people that had moves for each song. I asked a friend from another church about us volunteering next NYG to be one of the dancey people.
By Wednesday adult leaders could be found napping in all kinds of places. The convention center connected with the San Antonio river walk. What a picturesque resting place, no? If I didn't want to make it to one of the adult classes bad enough I would have joined this guy on the rocks and napped as well.
On a side note...WE ARE HAVING A BOY!!! We heard his heart beat twice yesterday and I think I will go online to buy a heart Doppler so I can check his heart beat on the regular. Nothing rests your fears like that heartbeat.
Until next time, amigos!
