I'm a Survivor

I have done more crazy things because of my youth pastor, Jay, growing up! I would be here all day if I were to tell you all the crazy things he had us do as a youth group, but they are some of my favorite memories!  Here is just one story that came to mind last night.

Back in 2006, I was helping out at Piedmont Church where Jay, my youth pastor growing up at KFBC, was now serving as the youth pastor; I was basically the leaders for the girls. The church had gone through a lot of changes and was currently rebuilding, and so myself and 5 guys from KFBC made the move to Piedmont to help out. Two of those guys are still there…but I was there to basically help out with the girls and help come up with ideas and plan events for the students with the guys and Jay. 

One of the “events” that Jay had started doing every year with the students was something called SURVIOR! Aside from the voting people off the weekend was designed that students (AND LEADERS…Jay never let leaders get out of doing the same thing as the students) would have a set of different competitions each day that we would compete in, and if you won a competition you won FOOD! Yep, you heard me right…working for your food was taken to a whole new level. You defiantly had to FIGHT for your food. But, not just food…from the moment we get to our location (all I remember was that it was in Tennessee) we hit the ground running. Back at the church we were already broken up into our groups, and each group had a leaders assigned to it, and yours truly was in charge of ALL the girls! Luckily only High School was allowed to participate in Survivor. I can't imagine having to keep up with middle school girls too!  So when we get to our location we were handed a card with instructions on it. The goal was to follow these directions (for some of them we had to use a compass…it was intense…I’m not joking) to number one: find our supplies, and then number two: to find our camp sight.

There where different cards set up around the our location that you had to find that gave you your next set of instructions. Each group had one card on the bluff.

 This picture doesn’t even do justice to how straight up and down this bluff was that we had to climb down and then back up. While you are climbing down it you have to try and find your groups instruction card so you can know where your “camp site” will be for the week, along with your supplies. I remember finally finding it, but climbing down the bluff was a WHOLE different story than climbing up it. At one point I was almost to the top and I thought my legs were going to give out on me.  It  was kind of like rock climbing except without and bilayer below to help you out, and let you down when you are done, or keep you from falling on your face. 


I could not for the life of me find find anywhere you put my foot so I could push myself up or  find a rock that I could get enough of a grip on the pull myself up. At one point, being the drama queen I can be at times, I thought “I am going to die on this bluff. This is it! Yep, I am gonna die.” Then out of nowhere Jay reached his hand down and told me grab hold. He asked if I could find anything I could push up on and he would pull me up. I finally found something I could push up on long enough for him to pull me up.

When I got the part of the bluff that plateaued at the top I laid there for a minute out of breath, and Jay just laughed a little and said “you okay!” I looked at him like he was crazy,and with a bit of a laugh and a lot of sarcasm said “ummm…no!”  That was only the beginning of all the craziness he would make us do. But, what made me think of this story was that during that week Jay challenged us to not only read and study the book of Jude but to memorize it…since it was just one chapter. Each day he would ask who had any part of Jude memorized, and if you did you won food for your team.

As I have been studying the book of Jude for our Pillars Bible Study Series "HEY, JUDE" , 6 years later, it makes since why Jay would have us memorize of all things the book of Jude during a week called Survivor. As a group, in a way, we were fighting for our survival…we had to get some fight in us if we were going to win competitions and more importantly EAT! The book of Jude in a nutshell is about as believers and followers of Jesus Christ we need to get some FIGHT IN US! We need to stand up for what we believe in…and we need to KNOW what we believe or we will be deceived. I am so excited as we head into the next 3 weeks of study at Pillars Girls Ministry and to see what God has in store for us.Praying that when we  finish  this series we will have a group of girls and leaders that can stand firm, put a fight for their faith and SURVIVE!!!