D Now 2011 ~ Wow!

By now you may have heard that we were a host home for D Now this year :) We had 6 eleventh grade girls plus their college-aged leader staying with us for a whole weekend and we loved every minute of it! Even Wesley enjoyed having a captive audience and when he had performed all he wanted, he disappeared across the street with his friends :)

The weekend began Friday evening...While the youth were at another church taking part in the first worship session, we brought home all their supplies and luggage...

We should have known we were in for it when all their belongings slowly took over the house...

First it was the snacks:

Then the sleeping bags and pillows and blankets and the luggage were brought in... You can already see Baylor is alarmed:

But aside from the sheer amount of STUFF it takes to house 7 girls, we didn't have a single complaint.


We let the leader girl have the guest room. We had 3 girls on Wesley's futon mattress in the office floor. Two girls took the couch and love seat / ottoman and one girl slept on the living room floor.


Friday night they were up late, but they didn't bother us one bit. In fact, Baylor was more difficult to sleep through than the Giggle Fest in the living room! He whimpered in our room all night!


Saturday morning, the breakfast fairy (aka Joann Walker from our church) arrived to make scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, grits and biscuits for the whole gang! A dozen eggs and 24 biscuits later we were stuffed and happy :) Just in time to head to the 2nd worship session.

The music portion was lead by Scott England and our girls were Instantly Mesmerized to say the least. The band was alot of fun and had some pretty powerful songs to sing. 

Then, the speaker got up and posed a series of eight questions centered on whether we are giving our whole heart to God or if there are parts we are holding back. The questions included things like "Do I have bitterness in my heart?" and then he would follow up with scripture that would explain why we ought to change that part of our heart... Then he'd move on to another question and a scriptural answer. It was really thought-provoking and if we were honest, we were answering YES to far too many of the questions :\ definitely gave us things to work on!

After that it was time for lunch and a little relaxation. The girls had a follow-up Bible study with our leader and then they watched a few movies and declared their love for Scott England, Justin Beiber... and Baylor!

All in all it was a WONDERFUL weekend and I know it's only because we had a GREAT group of young ladies! I can't wait to see how they internalize the lessons they learned and then to see how their bonds grown in the coming months! I am very thankful that my family got to be a part of the process!



Back Row L-R: Jessi, Lexi, Haley, Lauren, Kaitlin, Noel
Front Row L-R: Brad, Me, our college leader Meredith and Wesley!



Back at church on Sunday, the majority of our group sang in the worship service... I'd say it was an impressive group, wouldn't you?