Last night was a special night because I had the opportunity to share my testimony with the boys. Tonight, Ron shared his story. The boys were very engaged and amazed to hear we have experienced many of the same things they are currently going through. It was great to hear a few of the boys ask if they could share their personal stories; they are definetly in a place where they are starting to open up and trust each other!

Today was one of my favorite activities: the round pen. Inside the round pen, the boys watch as a horse is ran around the outside. There are very specific triggers used to turn the horse and build a connection. Once the connection is built, the teens stop and turn their back to the horse. Usually, it takes a few minutes for the horse to choose to come to the boy. Once they come, they will not leave their side. The boys can go anywhere in the pen and the horse will follow. Their is a great lesson about about our connection with God. God won’t force us to come to him; It’s our choice. God will never leave our side. It’s us who walk away from Him.

This afternoon we relaxed along the Muskegon River in tubes. Many of the boys had never tubed on a river before and we were able spend the time enjoying Gods beautiful creation and learning more about ourselves and each other.

If you were able to catch our 4pm Facebook live them you also saw our time at the zip line. The boys were able to challenge each other and overcome some personal fears by taking a step of faith! Some set a goal to climb to the top platform and others wanted to complete the entire zip line. We had some technical difficulties and connection issues with the FB live, but hopefully that will not be the case tomorrow morning at 9:30am.

Please keep the boys in your prayers especially as we get closer to leaving for our backpacking trip on Thursday. Their is definetly some anxiousness about the hike. There are some innerpersonal struggles related to tolerance, which is typical for teens this age; pray that the staff could help them to find strategies to work through these struggles.