celebrating snowball

So this past weekend we had so many girls come to Snowball. With adults and students we easily reached 175-180. But the thing that was most successful about Snowball was the fact that girls between the grades of 6-12 were getting to know each other and learning about what Godly friendship looks like. We had the theme of L.Y.L.A.S this year which if used to be all the rage when I was growing up. We would sign each other’s yearbooks with the phrase “Love Ya Like A Sister”. This year at Snowball we really challenged each other to do that…We had 5 different stations that 10 tribes of girls would rotate through. The first station was and L station that stood for Love. At that station girls were encouraged to think through how they love each other with words. They were encouraged to consider that what comes out of their mouths is truly an overflow of what is going on in their hearts. They ended that session by writing encouraging words and words of love on the Snowball themed t-shirts that had L.Y.L.A.S spray-paint stenciled on the bottom of the shirt.
The second station was the Y station. The Y stood for YOU at this station. This station we learned how to celebrate the gifts and uniqueness that God has created in each of us. We did this by making our own FLAIR buttons and then swapping flair buttons with a friend.
The third station was another L station. This L stood for loyalty. We talked about how important it was to have Godly friends to lean on in the difficult times. To illustrate we played a MEGA game of twister with 6 mats. Then the 3rd station was station A. ‘A’ stood for attributes. We talked about the different attributes we should look for and exhibit as christian friends. We had a little fun with this one. We had them play Attribute dodgeball. The way we did this was to take the positive attributes from the book series that has recently resurfaced on facebook…”little men and little misses”, and placed 6 of those on buckets with candy in each. So the Little Miss sunshine picture was placed on a bucket of butterfingers. And Little Miss Caring was placed on a bucket of kitkats…etc.
Then the negative attribute pictures like Little Miss Gossip was placed on a dodgeball.
The goal was to get as many pieces of candy out of the positive attribute buckets for your side without getting hit by a bad attribute dodgeball from the opposing team. If you got hit, you were out. The girls had a great time with this. The last station was station S. At station S we talked about the importance of serving others as friends. We made picture frames to give away to those we serve through our weekly lifegroup missions/service projects at Trevecca Towers.
Following the LYLAS stations, we went and did an hour of ZUMBA with Andrea Smith. She was amazing and ended by sharing about how as Christians girls we are God’s daughters and that speaks to how valuable we are in His eyes.
Then we ended the night with a prayer experience designed by myself, a wonderful mom and leader Jean Crosby, and most importantly—-a 12th grader named Madison Thompson who helped shape the experience with her own testimony and verses that helped her understand how God designed her uniquely and how we are to love others that are designed by God. We created paper dolls that were to look like each of us. We cut the dolls out and each of the dolls had 4 verses written on their arms and legs to support what Madison had talked about. Then we cut them out and got in a big line. We then talked about Ephesians 4:4 which says we are (MSG) called to stay together both inwardly and outwardly…that we are permeated with the Oneness of Christ…
We then took pieces of ducttape and joined the hands of each of the dolls to create a long line of paperdolls. We had the girls pray for the girl on her right and her left and then the adults went and hung the dolls up on the upperdeck of the connection center as a reminder of the prayer experience. It was awesome to be a part of. It was also super cool to have Melissa Trevantham and Sissy Goff share with our girls at the very beginning. Our girls have not stopped talking about what they shared with them and I see it all over facebook when girls will say “YOU MATTER” to another girl because that’s what Sissy and Melissa said to them. We also had a large dessert buffet for the girls to munch on throughout the night. It was awesome. Now I’m going to rest and hopefully get my voice back this week. It’s a blessing to serve in girls ministry! L.Y.L.A.S!