The format of the day was the exact same as yesterday, where we went to Delegation Groups after breakfast to open up discussion of the topic and then small group from there. The scripture passage of the day was Psalm 23.
In delegation group, we were led by one of the adults in the group, Daewon, who asked us a series of questions regarding to Psalm 23. A couple of them were "what kinds of things keep us from going in the way God leads us to go?" and "what are ways we can serve others back home?" with some wonderful answers from the youth in the group. These questions were very relatable because we all have issues in our lives that make us stray from the path God has chosen for us and there are many options for us to lead the life God wants us to live by serving others in ways like taking chances and setting examples.
Small groups was extremely fun because we started off by sharing Insanely Dumb Moments (IDM) with a smaller group within our small group. This lightened the mood and got us prepped for the topic of the day which we examined through stations. On one station, we wrote "Teach Me the Way I Should Go" and doodled the word "pray" around it and at another we wrote some of our sins down on a black strip of construction paper, wadded it up and threw it in the trash to symbolize how none of our sins are too great to be forgiven by God.
After small group we made our way back to the dining hall where we had a yummy lunch and then we were ready to go to worship! Today's worship service was my favorite of the week for many reasons. For one, the songs playing before worship started were really fun to dance to and a bunch of us stood up and danced along. Second, the energizers we did, Waving Flag, On Top of the World, and Numa Numa, are some of my favorites. Third, the band played some of my absolute favorite songs which are Beautiful Things by Gungor and Your Love Never Fails by Newsboys. Lastly, the sermon by Alicia Ridgill was phenomenal and had such a powerful message I was nearly brought to tears. She told us that God will never change his mind about us even if we happen to make a mistake because he is less concerned about how we fall down as he wants to see how it is that we stand back up. God, she told us, is a FUN God. Forgiving, Understanding, and Never-too-busy. When we feel like we stand alone in the world, we are not because God always understands us since he is the one who created us. Not only was the message incredible, she also had such a passion behind her words that I and the other youth felt extremely moved and looking back, I definitely felt God's presence in that music hall.
After worship and dinner, I went to recreation which was a massive scavenger hunt all around Purdue University's campus and I must say, it was probably the most fun I've had in awhile! We went from playing leap frog, to finding Cardboard Jesus, to making a rocket out of recycled materials and along the way we made many new friends which was extremely special to me.
So far, I have been extremely grateful for this experience and I cannot wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us!!
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