Life, Light, Word and Exhaustion

We spent the weekend at Leadership Training for Christ, a church based retreat in Kansas City where kids 3rd through 12th grades competed in events designed to grow them spiritually and encourage the development of their leadership skills. Each year there's a theme, and this year it was Life, Light & Word, the gospel of John. This was Mason's first year to participate, and the events he competed in were Christian art, speech, drama, bible reading, bible quiz & puppets. The whole weekend was amazing (it was at Crown Center also, so there was great food and shops when we weren't running to and from events), but the best part was anything Mason participated in--we had been before as church organizers, but there's something about having your own kid in the events, that makes it all feel so rewarding. He worked so hard--besides memorizing his lines for drama, he nearly memorized his speech and the first four chapters of John! Here's his speech (given at 8 a.m. on Saturday, in a suit, after having less than optimal sleep, thank you very much!)

We were really really tired when we got home, (and a few of us got the stomach flu and threw up so they were even more tired than the rest of us), but we would do it all again just to see Mason so grown up. (Well, grown up with the exception of a few escalator and elevator moments, but then again, Monte IS his dad!)