Each night as they finished their backyard Bible clubs, I received a text from their leader (Matt Williams) that they were packing up and that I should get heading to Bubble Tea down in the Loop. This is a place that I started taking kids to each day when I was leading mission trips to St Louis (I found out about it from my friend Craig DeMeester). So off I went each night around 8:15 to hang out with the team for about an hour or so. It was fun for me to see them, check in with them, encourage them, and just spend time with them. It was really fun.
On Friday, they had the entire day in St Louis to do whatever they wanted. So, as a team, they had decided that they wanted to spend the day with the T's. One request they had was to have Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast. So I got up early, headed to the Krispy Kreme place a ways from here and bought 6 dozen. By the end of the day, we had 2 donuts left. Not bad, eh?
The team arrived at 9am for breakfast. The other team that was at New City with them was a Korean Presbyterian Church (PCA) from St Louis. Their two leaders happen to be students at Covenant, who interestingly live right across the parking lot from our place. So, knowing that Peter and Yoohoo were be exhausted from their week, and not wanting to see teenagers for a while, the team took them a dozen Krispy Kreme and stopped by (I may have done a little recon work to find out where they live specifically).
After breakfast the team hung out at the house and chatted...
Manlin D did Hope's hair...
Gideon played cards...
And then, after eating at a Nepalese place I took the team to a few years ago, the team wanted to go to the zoo. So I drove Kathee, Gideon, and Esther back to the apartment, and then turned aroud with Hope and caught up with them at the zoo. The picture with Hope (above) is in the butterfly enclosure (her absolute favorite at the zoo).
Once supper was finished, we came back to our place and hung out, some of us went to the Bubble Tea that is a few miles from our house, and the rest watched the movie Ocean's 13. By the end of the night, we had kids sleeping on our floor!
After we closed down the zoo, we headed to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for supper (which is a few miles from our place). Kathee's dad, sister, brother-in-law, and their 4 kids (who were also in town last week) met us for supper there.
It was a blast to see the kids. I got to spend time with them each night. We got to worship with them at church on Sunday morning. We got to hang out with them all day on Friday. I got to pray with them before they left on Friday night. It was a great time to see and continue in relationship with so many people I have grown to love over the years at FUPC. I know I am not their youth pastor any longer, and I can see them (and the leaders) moving on without me, yet I take joy in being their youth pastor, and will always have a sweet spot for those kids (and all the kids I had in youth group over the years). What a great ending to a week spent with them!
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