Our pastor called me late last week and gave me a tip that the youth group was going to do a kidnapping and mystery dinner to welcome the newest members to our church youth group which includes our 7th grade son. We attend Nathan’s childhood church and our pastor came to the church when Nathan was in junior high. He is accustom to great youth group fun from our pastor.
We were to come home as usual after church and Sunday School and not to give Hunter any clues to what was about to happen. Our pastor said a white van would come by around noon and “kidnap” Hunter.
We did warn Miss E who would be TERRIFIED by her big brother being taken away in a white van but she was put at ease that it was a game and for fun.
Hunter couldn’t understand exactly why we encouraged him to skip our family brunch and instead watch football but he gladly sat down to watch football.
Until the door bell rang…
and Hunter’s buddies attacked.
He was promptly blindfolded and his buddy Aaron was nice enough to put on his shoes for him (with the Pinkalicious decor still around from the birthday bash.)
But he didn’t get to put on a coat in frigid prairie temperatures…but the kidnappers weren’t wearing coats either. Hearty prairie dwelling boys. They said “don’t worry the van is warm” as they ran away from our house.
And indeed there really was a white van that hauled him away from our house.
The white van also safely returned a non-blindfolded beaming Hunter home to our house.
He loved his youth group welcome, all in the name of Jesus and great teenage clean fun!
A few of you had great youth group fun with me in our teen years. Seeing Hunter hauled away brought back “old” memories for me. What I didn’t know then is what lasting friendships we were building during our church youth group outings. Years later we are reading one another’s blogs, keeping in touch about raising kids and still having fun together.
Now, let’s hope (and pray) the same for our children.
I bet he had a great time! That’s such a neat thing to do for him!