blazing sun, no air conditioning, loud music, amazing high school students = CIY

Well Ella and I had our first little adventure last week! We traveled 5 hours up to Holland Michigan to go with the high schoolers to CIY. For those of you that don't know what that is, CIY, or Christ in Youth is a week long church conference where students have the chance to be a part of amazing worship, go to classes and listen to very powerful speakers.

This year CIY focused a lot on the persecuted church and we got to watch a video called Love Costs Everything. This was such an eye opening film for both sponsors and students. It gave us an up close look at what our Brothers and Sisters all over the world go through in order to worship Jesus. The students were immediately impacted by the scenes on the movie which consisted of eye witness testimonies and real live footage of people being beaten and killed. The true depth of what they had seen didn't sink in until a few days later when they were able to process what they had watched. It was so amazing to watch them react to the information they had been given. To watch them get angry at what is going on in the world and to want to change it. That is what I love about working with High School students!

I was also afraid of how Ella would act this week. It was her first road trip and I was afraid she would cry the whole way or poop in the middle of it and we would have to pull over to change her. My fears were wrong!!! Ella was the perfect baby last week. She slept the entire time we were driving. She stayed quiet while the speakers were preaching, she slept during the loud parts of worship, she went to bed when i needed her to go to bed! I couldn't have asked for a better baby! Below are a few pictures from one day when some of the girls baby sat her for a while! They laid out a blanket and played outside in the shade with her and I have to say she is quite bored with her mommy now that all the girls aren't here to entertain her!