Fletcher Football

What a great night for multiple reasons!  The Jax Beach Pop Warner teams were being honored at the Fletcher Football game.   Bubba was so cute hanging out with all his football buddies and had a great night!!  They got to run out of the big inflated Fletcher Football helmet.  The Fletcher cheerleaders even lined up with the Pop Warner cheerleaders for the boys to run through!  It was very exciting!  They allowed the boys to stay on the sidelines while the Fletcher players came back on the field.  They were so nice to the little football players.  I loved watching Bubba high five as many Fletcher players as possible.  Bubba has always been a big Fletcher fan!  I think mainly because his Dad played football at Fletcher and he keeps a framed picture of his Dad in uniform right next to his bed.  Also, his cousin Jesse is now a Lacrosse player.  Bub’s may be Jesse’s biggest fan.  Aunt Shar buys him all kinds of spirit wear, even some with Jesse’s number on it.

 

When I first arrived at the game, I sat with my girlfriend Paulette and reminisced about her years in the color guard at Fletcher and now her son plays on the Middle School Football team.  Then my mind wandered to all the games I came to when I was a Young Life leader.  I would go to the games strictly to do “contact work” with the high school kids (building relationships for ministry sake.)  I would leave the game and usually not even know if Fletcher won or lost.  As if to make my reflections even more vivid, I ran smack into Ben, the current YL leader most likely doing contact work as well!  We had a sweet, short visit and it blessed me so that YL is still going at the Beaches.  What a powerful ministry it is.  It earns the right to be heard with the students by building friendships.  Leaders earn student’s trust and through that trust share Christ.  I attribute my Young Life days, as setting me on course for my lives’ call of ministry.  I saw the mostly unlikely kid’s changed through the Young Life ministry. No one puts on a camp like Young Life, with top-notch food, fun and fine facilities.  So many old club kids have told me that their week at Windy Gap was the best week of their life.  Me too!   May Young Life continue to be blessed and change teenager’s lives! Oh, and Go Senators!!