Middle schoolers = Love

I had the privilege of hanging out with some awesome middle schoolers from Back Creek's youth group this weekend. They were here, along with some other pretty awesome leader-people, from Friday night into Saturday for an Acquire the Fire conference in Greensboro. I was able to attend and be their only girl advisor. Here are some things that I learned this weekend:

1. Middles Schoolers ask tons of questions. I don't think I've ever been asked so many questions in a 24 hour period than this weekend. "When are we leaving?", "Which band is playing next?", "What time should we get up tomorrow morning if we need to leave at 8:00am?", "Do you have a boyfriend?", "How much longer?", "Why are we still on the bus?"... just to name a few. I really didn't mind it, believe it or not. I just never really knew most of the answers unless they directly applied to me.

2. Middle School boys can consume more food in one meal than I would consume in a whole week. I met the group at a local Wendy's, about 5 minutes away from campus. When I arrived, I noticed that a majority of the boys had at least 3 junior bacon cheeseburgers, with an enormous amount of fries. I then proceeded to apply everything that I've learned this far in the semester in my nutrition class and realized that these poor children are on their way to a heart attack or two. Good thing they're only 13 and have very quick metabolisms. I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually. Eat away, boys.

3. I still am not a huge Biscuitville fan. As a youth group, we used to frequent Biscuitvilles. They're still just as gross as I remember. Enough said.

4. Middle school is right where my heart is. I've known for a while that once I get my K-12 Special Education licensure that I most definitely want to work in a middle school, but this weekend completely confirmed it. I love that even though middle schoolers are more self-sufficient than elementary schoolers, they're still fairly dependent on someone to tell them what to do, where to be, etc. They just have so much innocence left in them, while they're always learning all about themselves and making their own opinions. That allows for some shaping. I love that about them.

5. Drinking coffee while on middle school youth trips is the cool thing to do. One dear 8th grader told me: "We always drink decaf coffee on youth trips. Our parents won't let us drink it otherwise." I'm not sure what the fun in drinking coffee is when it's decaf, but apparently it's the cool thing to do. I never had any desire to drink it "just for fun". It's totally disgusting unless you need caffeine so severely that you finally acquire the taste. But that's just my opinion.

6. Middle schoolers, at least the ones from Back Creek, are great kids. They love the Lord, and that's really evident in most of their lives.

"...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." -Philippians 1:6