1st day of club

today was the first day of the new club at Princeton plaza. it was like being in middle school all over again: awkward.


my firends anna-marie from youth for christ and my friend chris from st. timothy's and i all showed up at 7:30 to pray and set up. we had cereal, pastries and orange-juice. we had some music, and all of our paper products- we felt like we were all set.


anna-marie stood out in front of mcdonald's, while I stood out in front of Walgreens handing out flyers. there were these 2 girls who were all dressed up for their friend’s birthday who thought I was a creep. a friend of mine stopped by to talk while they were in Walgreens- they looked like they were waiting for me to be distracted so they could get out of the store without talking to me. later they went back in with a friend. I said, “free breakfast today!” and their friend stabbed me in the chest with an eye-roll/head-snap/sigh-combo. i went into club and the students said, "some birthday girls rejected us!"
i said, "they rejected me too!" i went back outside and saw them again.
i said, "i'm not even going to invite you guys after that vicious eye-roll"
but this time one of their friends recognized me from church or camp or something.
she said, “oh hi! I know you! you’re pastor rob!”
I said, “aha! see?! I told you guys there was nothing to be afraid of! and you thought that I was a creep!”
and one of them said, “well, only lauren thought you were a creep…”
thanks.


you could almost see the thought-bubbles over the students’ heads saying,
“what will my friends think if I go inside? will they think that I’m not cool?” students would walk up, look for their friends, and then run away. and then they would slowly come back. it was pretty funny.


there was a big difference in the type of student around. there were the rich almaden kids who wanted to know “what kind of food is it?” and then there were kids from the apartments who were just glad that there was food.


in all, we reached out to about 30 students- mostly Hispanic boys. we had a lot of fun connecting with them- and we’re all looking forward to next week.