Youth Group Reunion

In 1985, I was fifteen years old and my dad retired from the Air Force. We were living in Belleville, Illinois at the time and my parents decided to return to Montgomery, Alabama where they owned a house. A good friend of my dad's encouraged him to take me and my sister to the youth group at a local church so we could meet some people and make some friends before school started. So they drug me, kicking and screaming, in a DRESS, to church on Sunday mornings.

This youth group is the means God used to change my life. Through our youth pastor, Keith Waldrop, and other young adult couples that discipled me and spent time with me, and choir tours, and mission projects, and ski trips and camps and Sunday schools and so many other activities and people, I discovered the Word, and discovered what it meant to have a personal relationship with Christ.

The friends I made in those high school years meant everything to me. I was so much closer to these people then the ones in my own high school. The relationships were real, they were deep, and they were special.

Though 21 years have passed since we graduated from the youth group, I still have so many memories of friends and events. A lot of them I have reconnected with this past year on face book and I am so thankful for that.

A few months ago, some friends decided to try and do a reunion for all the youth group that were there under the years that Keith Waldrop was our youth minister. The idea was immediately encouraged, so a date was set, the details planned, and last weekend it happened.
How amazing it was to spend the weekend with people who were my best friends in high school and college. To meet spouses and children and to hear stories of where they have been for the past 20 years! People drove from Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and other places to make it.

It was a VERY special weekend for me and I am so glad I went!

Keith married Sam and I. The main reunion night fell on our 17th wedding anniversary. Above is a picture on our wedding day with Keith. I said that if I couldn't spent my anniversary with my husband (who was out of the country) I would spend it with all the friends and the minister who were with us on our wedding day! :)

Below is a picture from last Saturday. I wish I could have gotten it bigger! Keith is down in the front, and behind him are "his" youth. Just a few of the thousands who came under him in his 14 years at Frazer.

It was wonderful being reminded of some very special and life changing years in my life. They are planning another one in 2012 since this one was such a hit. I am ready to mark it on my calendar!
:)