8th Grade Beach Trip Video

tallohood — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:17:53 +0000

Here is a quick and simple glimpse at what our week was like in Alabama. Lots of worship and beach time. Awesome!

-Micah

Sonlight Mission Trip Updates

tallohood — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:43:59 +0000

For updates on the Sonlight (Tallowood’s high school choir) Mission Trip to San Diego, check out tallowoodtalking.com.

8th Grade Beach Trip: Days Four and Five

tallohood — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:10:53 +0000

Well, it has been an awesome week, but it is about to come to a close. We leave at 8 am tomorrow morning and have more than 10 hours on the road before we make it back to Houston. It has been an absolute blast to spend a week with this group. They are great students and this week I have seen them grow closer together and I have gotten to witness their heart for God. Awesome! Anyway, here is a quick recap of the past two days.

Yesterday, we had a great morning of worship and then came back to the condos for lunch and some beach time. The beach really has been awesome. Some of our boys bought skim boards so they spent several hours of the last two days just running down the beach, and gliding on the water. I would try it, but if I did, I know I would end up flat of my face. haha! After beach time and dinner, we headed to our evening worship service.

The thing that stood out for me from last night’s worship service was the opportunity for students to sponsor a child who lives in poverty through Compassion International. Several of our students called home and got permission to sponsor a child. This really is an awesome thing. Check out their link for more information. Also, last night, I treated the students to a movie after worship. We saw Despicable Me. It was a really funny and appropriate movie. If you can, make time and go see it. You won’t regret it!

Today was more of the same: breakfast, worship, lunch, Bible study, beach time, dinner, worship, group time, and bed. As you can see, we spend a lot of time in worship and eating! I have to say a HUGE thank you to our female sponsors Bina and Joanne who went shopping for all of our food and prepared all of our meals – with the help of our students, of course. If the meals had been left up to me, we would have had a rough week. These ladies have gone above and beyond and our students have eaten well. They are awesome!

Also, as we have spent time in worship services, our students have really been engaged in what is going on – especially during the music. Kristian Stanfill has been the worship leader this week and he is outstanding. A few of our girls sort of stalked him after the final service and got a picture with him, so I had to put that on here. They even got him to sign their CDs. Good job girls!

Well, that’s it. See you back in Houston tomorrow!

-Micah

8th Grade Beach Trip: Days Two and Three

tallohood — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:11:34 +0000

I finally got Internet access at the condos in Orange Beach, so I’ll try and fill you in with a quick update from the past two days.

We left Baton Rouge early on Tuesday morning and made it to Orange Beach for check-in with Student Life around 2:30 pm. From there, we headed to our condos which are right on the beach! We were very excited to see where we are spending the week and we were even more excited to see how cool the condos are. We have four condos and they all have wrap around balconies that look out over the beach. Let’s just say that we are spoiled!

We were also thrilled to see that there is NO OIL on the beaches, We can see boats in the distance doing cleanup and we can also see big red barriers a long way off from the beach, but the water is basically unaffected where we are. We have had red flags flying, but oddly enough, it is not oil related. The red flags are because of strong riptides. So, since there is no oil, we had some good, unhindered time on the beach today!

The way the schedule works here is simple. We go to a worship service in the morning and at night, and then we are on our own from about 11 am to 7 pm. In this “free time” we eat lunch, have small group Bible studies, play on the beach, and also eat dinner. It is a very flexible schedule and has been awesome for us so far. Student Life also organizes some beach rec, so some of our boys took advantage of that today.

The services have been great so far. Kristian Stanfill is leading worship and Matt Carter from The Austin Stone has been our camp pastor. Matt has been talking about sin and the effects it has on us. It has been good, challenging, and deep stuff. Starting tomorrow, we actually have a different camp pastor for the rest of the week – Darrin Patrick. Matt and Darrin are really good friends and are well coordinated so it should be interesting to see how that works. If you are curious to hear more about what we are learning at Beach Camp, you can listen live from home. Tomorrow night (Thursday) and the next night (Friday) our services will be broadcast online. To listen to the audio, go here! It starts at 7 pm each night.

Finally, to see a whole lot more about the week, you can go here. This site is hosted by Student Life and gives a really good detailed look at our week. And a cool thing – we are the “Youth Group of the Day” tomorrow (Thursday). This means there will be an article about us on this site sometime Thursday. Just click on “group of the day” in gray on the right. That should be cool!

I guess that is all for now!

-Micah

8th Grade Beach Trip: Day One

tallohood — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:00:26 +0000

Today we left with 21 8th grade students and began our trip to Orange Beach, Alabama for Student Life Camp at the Beach. It is a 10 hour drive though, so we split the trip in half and spent our first night in my hometown of Baton Rouge, LA.

I can’t take students to Baton Rouge and not bring them to LSU, so we spent about an hour touring the LSU campus. We drove around Tiger Stadium, visited Mike the Tiger (who was very playful today!), drove around the Parade Grounds, and even drove down Sorority Row.

After that, we made our way to Brew-Bachers, a great down home, local restaurant for an authentic dinner. It was some good food! Man, I miss that Cajun cooking. We wrapped up the night with some swimming at our hotel and then headed off to bed. Ready to get to the beach tomorrow, but really enjoyed a quick stop in BR!

-Micah

**Check out this video I took of Mike today. Pretty cool!

Camp Pictures to Download!

tallohood — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:03:28 +0000

Just click on the pics below to download and get printed. Thanks to Chris Raif for his awesome photo skills!

-Micah

Camp Tallowood 2010 Group Picture

Camp Tallowood 2010 Seniors

Camp Tallowood 2010 (Thursday Video)

tallohood — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:12:05 +0000

We are back at home and resting up from Camp Tallowood 2010 . I am still overwhelmed by all we saw, experienced, and learned this week. I hope you have had a chance to talk with your kids about their experience.

Today was a busy day in Houston as we met to unload the camp truck, put everything back in camp storage (where it will sit til next summer), and then plan the reflection service for Sunday night – 6 pm in the Tallowood worship center. Anyway, after a long nap today I was able to put together the video for Thursday. Enjoy!

-Micah

Camp Tallowood 2010 (Thursday, June 24th)

tallohood — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:17:36 +0000

Wow! Today was the last full day of Camp Tallowood and man was it a packed one. We started out with the usual breakfast and then headed to worship in the Pavillion. That is where the regular routine ended.

This morning, Scot taught about Good Friday including the Roman scourging of Jesus and the process of crucifixion. Then he explained the correlation between the site of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah and the crucifixion of Jesus outside the Temple in Jerusalem – these two events happened in the same place. After Scot taught for a while, the Tallowood Players performed a drama of Jesus’ trial and beating. After this, the Camp Eagle staffer that was portraying Jesus was led out of the Pavillion. Then, the entire camp hiked to the spot where we would witness a depiction of Jesus and the two criminals on crosses. It was a powerful image that was reinforced by Scot continuing his message at the site of the crucifixion while the three men hung on the crosses. It was quite a moving experience.

After this was over, the campers hiked down the mountain and went off to their village sites for quiet time, small groups, and site time. Instead of regular REC today, we had the Village Run which is a huge race between all 12 villages at Camp Tallowood. It was a pretty epic race with lots of close finishes. In the end, Sychar won the Village Run. After the race, we took a picture of the entire camp and then enjoyed free time.

Today, I am happy to report that I did the zip line twice and even got video of it – though I am not able to upload video tonight. If you’ve been reading the blog all week, I met my goal of getting some quality free time in today! It was fantastic. In addition to the zip line, I spent a good hour just driving middle school students around on my cart – they love piling in and then cruising up and down the hills. Good times!

After our chicken finger and mashed potato dinner, we had our evening worship service which was anything but ordinary. We began in the Pavillion where Scot taught about the resurrection of Jesus – particularly when Jesus appeared to the two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). This passage talks about how Jesus appeared after his death to two men who were leaving Jerusalem. As he walked with them on the road, he shared how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. After this, the entire camp got to experience the road to Emmaus as each village visited all the other villages and heard different Old Testament Messianic prophecies and how Jesus was the fulfillment of those prophecies. That was a very cool time!

Then, every village walked to the same place where we witnessed the living nativity on Sunday night. Here, Scot concluded his message and the seniors did their senior interp. This was followed by worship with Jeremy McCasland and band. Then more surprises – as the band was singing “I Saw the Light,” fireworks began to light up the sky. This went on for about ten minutes and it was incredible. After the fireworks stopped, we were all surprised again with some good old Blue Bell ice cream. What better way to end the night!

It has been an amazing week at Camp Tallowood. I pray that after reading this blog you will be able to ask some good questions of your kids when they get home – which by the way will be around 7 pm in the south parking lot (facing Perthshire Rd) of the main campus.

-Micah

*Pictures courtesy of Camp Eagle staff!

**Video of Thursday coming soon… sometime this weekend I hope.

Camp Tallowood 2010 (Wednesday, June 23rd)

tallohood — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:31:30 +0000

Today was another busy day at Camp Tallowood 2010. There are some parts of camp that never change, like breakfast and packing a lunch to eat out at the village sites, but there were also some unique moments in the day here. We had morning worship in the pavilion where Scot taught about the Triumpal Entry of Jesus followed by our daily time at the village sites. At this point in the week, most of our students have gotten to know the folks in their villages really well. A goal of ours during the week of camp is for every one of our students to have a “one-on-one” conversation with the adult that leads their small group. This is an outstanding chance for our sponsors to find out more about the kids in their group, ask about their faith, and also share a bit about their own lives. This week, many students have made decisions about their faith during these one-on-one moments. They are priceless!

After lunch at the village sites, we had one last day of REC. It was a beautiful day for this and I must say that most of our students (and adults too) have gotten some nice tans from being in the sun for REC all week! Just another benefit of Camp Tallowood. We will not have normal REC tomorrow, but instead we will have the Village Run – a huge race between the 12 villages that occurs all over Camp Eagle. The Village Run is like a marathon mixed with hotdog eating, potato sack races, and some elements of our REC games integrated into the race. I can’t wait! It is one of my favorite things about camp.

After REC was a glorious amount of free time. I realized today that I have never been repelling or down a zip line despite my many trips to Camp Eagle. So a goal of mine for tomorrow is to follow our students’ example and do both! The kids are having such an awesome time during free time with all these amazing options and I am jealous! Check back tomorrow and see if I made my goal. Haha

Tonight, we had an awesome spaghetti dinner with tasty breadsticks followed by our evening worship service. Tonight’s service is where camp proved to be anything but routine. We had awesome worship by Jeremy McCasland and band and then Scot Pollok taught about the Passover meal and how it connected to the Last Supper. I am still processing everything that he said but his insight on the traditions of the meal and how the elements point directly to Christ was really deep. As he shared, he had a table that contained all of the elements of the Passover meal. This was an excellent prop for Scot as he showed us how the bread and wine as well as the other elements of the Passover meal were tied to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. If we are able, I want to provide his teaching on DVD when we get home.

At the end of the service tonight, we also were able to serve the Lord’s Supper to our students. That was a moving experience for our kids. Since we are divided up into villages for the week, each village leader served the members of their team. This made for a very personal experience for everyone involved. I am humbled to say that during Scot’s teaching and the Lord’s Supper our students were highly engaged and focused through some deep teaching and application. At the end of the service, a good number of kids were moved to respond when given the chance. There was a lot of prayer and reconciliation tonight. God is good!

-Micah

Camp Tallowood 2010 (Tuesday, June 22nd)

tallohood — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:48:54 +0000

Wow, this has been an outstanding day at Camp Tallowood 2010! Our morning started out like any normal day here with breakfast in the cafeteria followed by everyone packing their own lunch to be eaten in the country later. When we headed to the Pavillion, we had a powerful message from our own pastor, Duane Brooks. He spoke about the wedding in Cana where Jesus turned water into wine and how if we invite Jesus in, He will come into our lives and change everything. Good stuff!

After worship, we headed out to villages again for quiet times, small group discussion, scripture memory and some time to work on the “Village Voice” presentations. More about “Village Voice” in a minute…

Students then ate lunch at their village sites and headed out for REC. We had another awesome day of games which are focused on the life of Jesus. I like the messy games like “Gifts of the Magi” where students run piggy-back style to three stations where they dig through mud pits to find gifts for baby Jesus. I’m sure that’s exactly how it happened in Biblical times, right? Then another awesome yet spiritually shallow game is “Mud Pit Tug of War.” It is a complicated concept where students get in a giant mud pit and play tug of war. Awesome!

After REC was free time where students can go rappelling, swimming on the waterfront (with the blob), hiking, or even ride the zip line. But the highlight of free time today was the annual “Saints and Sinners” game between the sponsors (saints) and the seniors (sinners). It was another blowout with the sponsors winning 13 to 6. It does an aging man good to beat some young and energetic high schoolers. Haha!

After free time we gobbled down a fried chicken dinner and then had worship in the Pavillion. Tonight, Scot taught about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11). Scot is an amazing teacher and he really brings the scripture alive. Several things stuck out to me tonight. One was what Scot referred to as an Easter appetizer… Jesus raising Lazarus is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ own resurrection. Another point was the significance of Jesus saying “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Scot really broke down the importance of Jesus saying “I am” in light of God’s reference to Himself in Exodus 3. Read those passages today of you have sometime and see how they relate. Be assured that your students are getting some quality teaching this week.

We had a quick break after the service and then we had the “Village Voice.” This is a chance for each of the 12 villages to perform a quick sketch about the group they are in. This year, this took the form of our villages acting out the miracle that Jesus performed in each village. We had some pretty outstanding performances from our kids. They are so creative! We also had a surprise star in one of our MCs, our intern Tony Robinson. He was awesome… especially when he sang Disney tunes!

I say this every night, but it has been an amazing day at Camp Tallowood! I hope you are getting a small taste of what is going on at Camp Eagle in the middle of nowhere Texas. We are having a blast!

-Micah

One last thing… a HUGE thanks to Jonathan Berry, one of our former students at Tallowood who now works at Camp Eagle. He made me a frozen coffee in the coffee shop (after hours) so that I could stay awake and update the blog. Thanks Jonathan!