Welcome Back

Hey Hope you guys had a great fall break. I know for me I had a great time. I went to California for a few days, spent a day hanging out with some of you at the World Vision Warehouse, and got to be snowed in for a few days. What a bummer, snow days during fall break. It's just not fair. Anyway, we are back to it now at THE WELL we're still talking about 40 days of community and how we're better together than we are apart. Come tonight for a great night of worship and being together with Christian friends. Just a couple things for you to remember

1. Bring coats for our coat drive.
2. Bring offering money for our Compassion Child
3. Bring money for the snack bar.
4. Don't forget you can still buy an "I like church" t-shirt.

See you all tonight.

Kendal

Shave The Head

So if 170 kids show up to THE WELL tomorrow night I (Kendal) have agreed to shave male pattern baldness into my head and wear it that way for a week. I'm really hoping to be sporting this awesome hairstyle for the next week, so make it happen. Bring your friends, your friends friends, and anyone else you can convince to get here. I need a creative hair cut.

Announcements 10-6-09

Grounded 9:00am Sunday

Well if you haven't heard we've started a new Bible Study on Sunday mornings during the 9:00am service in the youth room. We get together have coffee, donuts, juice, play some games, get to know each other, and study the Bible. We'd love to have all of you show up and check it out. We're also starting the 40 days of community which is what the rest of EHCC is also working through. It's a great time to get to know people and meet some new people. We can't wait to see all of you there.

Kendal

Announcements 9/29/09

Another amazing announcement video for you from THE WELL check out what's going on. Hope to see you next week Tuesday night.

Bentley

Meet Bentley, our new pal at THE WELL, want to know more and what she's all about make sure you check out THE WELL tonight.

Kendal

Announcements 9/22/09

Here's the announcements from this past Tuesday.

Michael Fugitt @ THE WELL 9/22

Hey everyone,

Michael Fugitt will be at THE WELL tonight. (www.myspace.com/michaelfugitt) Make sure you get here to check this guy out. He's an amazing musician and will be sharing with us his unique blend of worship, singing, songwriting, etc. Please bring extra money for a special offering we will be taking to bless Michael and his ministry. He will also have CD's for sale and don't forget about WELL t-shirts. This night is going to be great as we hear from a very talented musician who has an amazing love for the Lord. Don't miss it, and invite your friends.

Kendal

Hoe Down was AWESOME

THE WELL kick-off Hoe Down was amazing. We had to fight the weather and get rained on a little, and then things got dark so we moved the whole thing inside. (I've never sweat so much in my whole life) Everyone was dressed up in their coolest cowboy/cowgirl duds and looking great. Big hats, big belt buckles, and boots everywhere, it just doesn't get any better than that. We danced, and danced, and danced, by the looks of things a good time was had by all. We made our leaders eat nasty handfuls of pickles, we had a hot dog eating contest (Hilary and Cameron totaly dominated). It was a great way to kick-off an amazing year at THE WELL. Make sure you guys keep coming on Tuesday nights, it's going to be an amazing year.

Kendal

To see more pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/thewellaurora/HoeDown?feat=directlink

Kick-off September 8th.

Okay everybody, it's finally here, THE WELL fall kick-0ff. We're going to be having a huge hoedown with food, games, dancing, fun, prizes, contests, etc. It's going to be great. Make sure you wear some western gear, the best dressed will receive a cool prize. We've got new t-shirts for this year, so bring $10 and get one of these really cool new t-shirts. There's a lot of great stuff planned for this year, so don't miss this first WELL of the new school year. Bring a friend a check it out.

A Great Trip !!!!

Well we're home from Cali and looking back over an amazing week. It was a challenging week, a week where some of us had to make some really difficult decisions and some amazing decisions that will change the rest of our lives. We had amazing times of worship, great speakers, and great times of community with our friends and leaders from THE WELL. This is a trip I don't think we will quickly forget. A quick wrap up of our last few days in Cali. We went to the beach (awesome) where we were pushed around by the current like crazy. That night after our group time some of us went to Tommy's if you like chili and cheese it's amazing, if you don't you'll probably throw up. If you haven't noticed the theme in these blog posts I like the ocean and food. We had a pretty good dodgeball team represent THE WELL all the way to the quarter finals of the dodgeball tournament. The last night we received envelopes which included a challenge for the next year. These were a pretty big deal, and some of us didn't even open them. Those of us that did were faced with some pretty big challenges for the next year that we will be working on and struggling with until next summer, hopefully they will make us better kingdom workers. We decided to skip going to Vegas for the night and stay at Biola wake up really early 4:00am and drive straight through to Aurora. It worked out really well and everyone was really excited to be home. Mom's and Dad's that helped us pay and make this week possible, we thank you. Leaders that went along, helped drive, took time away from work and their own families to hang out with high school students thank you. Can't wait for next year.

Check out all the pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/thewellaurora/CIYMOVE2009?feat=directlink

So much fun in the sun.

Today was a really fun day. We started early again. Kids have been complaining that it is "impossible" to get 8 hours of sleep at this conference. I told them they could sleep the whole way back to Aurora if they want. We spent our quiet times again, d-groups, and the morning session. Today was all about crossing the red sea, and leaving our old lives behind us. We need to leave those lives behind us and move onto kingdom living and making a difference. We watched a really inspirational video about 3 people doing amazing things in our world. Lunch was next followed by a choice of 5 seminars, then during free time there was a talent show that was run much like the gong show. You had 3 minutes and then the mics turned off. I'd call it more of an untalent show. After dinner we hung out in the commons area just being together and having fun. Evening session was really fun with great worship and teaching. They ended with huge rolls of paper towel being unrolled from the back of the auditorium all the way to the front. They were everywhere and basically covered all of the seats. Everyone was wondering what the significance was but I'm pretty sure it was only to be fun. (which it was). For our youth group time we went to Yogurt Land, a self-serve frozen yogurt place. 20 flavors with all the toppings you could want. 30 cents an ounce, good thing it's cheap because these kids put away some yogurt tonight. Now it's time for bed and another fun day tomorrow. Everyone is looking forward to the beach tomorrow.

Click Here for Pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/thewellaurora/WednesdayAtCIY?feat=directlink

Whew!!!

Well today was a pretty intense day. We started this morning with a personal quiet time after breakfast. After that we were in our D-groups (small groups) talking about what sin looks like and what freedom in Christ looks like. We all had two wristbands that we wrote sins on the inside of and wore them all day. They were there to be a constant reminder of the sins that keep us from being truly free. After lunch we had free time which was spent in basketball tournaments, volleyball games, tossing Frisbees, hanging out in the air conditioning, and playing a wild game of extreme spoons. Everyone had a ton of fun in the beautiful California weather. Dinner tasted especially good after the long after noon of playing hard. We went into our evening session with more great worship which concluded with us leaders joining all of the students (and our own) hands with a third wristband like shackles. We stayed that way through the last few worship songs and the entire talk by Jenny who spoke an amazing message about breaking out of our shackles and pursuing the freedom that we have in Christ. We ended with a time of silence to reflect on what Jesus did to take care of our shackles and then in silence you heard 1300 people break them off their wrists. It was amazing. After that came a time of confession with kids speaking to leaders, and each other about what they needed help with, accountability for etc. It was pretty raw, emotional, and really amazing to see. After that we debriefed on the soccer field again and ended with a little less intense game of throwing a shoe at each other. Another great day at move. Your kids will have to fill you in on all the details when we get home. Everyone, unless they're faking it, is having a great time.

Beach, Compton, and CIY Move

Before

After

After a hard days work

Well we made it to California. We decided to change plans and go to Huntington beach yesterday rather than Santa Monica and Venice. Those beaches are to far away, and we wouldn't have enough time. Bad idea, the US open of Surfing is going on in Huntington this week. I've never seen the beach so crowded in my life, it took us almost an hour to make it through town to a point where we could make lunch, get our swimsuits from the trailer, and then shuttle the kids back to the beach while we parked the vans miles from the beach. Because it took so long we decided to stay late and were at the beach until 8:00pm. We checked in at our school and then went to Don Jose' a Kendal favorite Mexican restaurant. This morning we left early for Compton, had breakfast at a donut shop and then proceeded to our work sight. We had a ton of work, cleaning up trash, demolition debris, weeds, grass, and other stuff. We filled one of the biggest dumpsters I have ever seen and all the kids did an amazing job. Many of the kids said it was by far the highlight of their day. We arrived at Biola nasty, sweaty, and smelly, but the cafeteria is awesome, we had a great dinner and then onto the evening session. It was a time of amazing worship, great teaching, and a time with just our group out on the soccer field. It was great. We're tired headed to bed, hopefully we'll have more tomorrow.

Getting started

Here's the new WELL blog. This is the first posting and it's just making sure people are in the right place. We leave for SoCal at 7:00am tomorrow morning. We're praying that we have an amazing week with lots of great experiences drawing us closer to Jesus.

Check back soon