Students in the Moka Room! Join us on Friday, April 16, from 6:00-8:30.
We’ll be meeting up at Let’s Play Table Tennis to battle one another to the death in Ping Pong!
Then we’ll head to Davannis for pizza and chill time with one another.
Get dropped off at 6pm at Let’s Play Table Tennis: 1992 Suburban Ave, St Paul
Get picked up at 8:30pm at Davannis: 310 White Bear Ave, St Paul
Bring $5 and a friend!

To RSVP and with questions, contact Dan Jackson at 612-710-1972.

Hey Parents!
We’re having a parent meeting next Wednesday, April 7, from 6:30-8:00. We’ll meet in South B, one of the big multi-purpose rooms in the Heroes Gate area. Come to hear about this upcoming summer and changes for the fall. There will be time to ask questions, connect with other parents, and sign up for the early bird rate on the Summer Retreat!
Contact Erica with questions at 651-287-2070 or ehunt@whchurch.org.

This Saturday I attended Echo’s Reveal: Gender, the experience consisted of some learning activities. The first one I went to we watched these videos on Gender Stereotypes. A couple tried to prove that women don’t belong in the workplace. The one I really loved was about how young boys learn from a young age the way they are supposed to act, look, and perceive girls from Disney movies (e.g.: Gestan, Hercules, Aladdin, even in Mulan w/ Shang) and that the bumbling lunatic characters are always the short round men who are confused a lot of the time. Also, you never see any mothers in Disney movies, except maybe Mulan orCinderella, and even then they are in the background and it is the father who takes the lead role in the Heroine’s life. This realization made me never want to let my future children watch anything Disney! (except maybe Pooh…)
We also looked at Gender Stereotypes in advertizing. My group talked through stereotypes like ladies are supposed to stay home w/ the children and fathers bring home the bacon. Then we looked through verses in the bible that talk as though God was a mother[link to Hosea11:3-4] instead of a father. That was interesting because I can now see God in ways that remind me of both Genders. It makes it easier to know that all humans were made in God’s image and maybe there was no Gender before God decided to create it!
After lunch we headed to the mall to take the good ‘ol survey. We went around asking people questions about how they perceive genders. The question that asked to describe each gender in one word was the most interesting. Most males said girls were emotional, while women stated that men were distant or jerks[link to pic of the Newboys], my favorite one though was a girl who said boys were silly. That was cute.
The one thing that I learned that I really appreciated is that we as genders need to communicate with each other. There is no sense for us as young people to be alienated from each other and we need to have healthy friendships with one another to truly live in peace with each other. This love that goes out to all people groups, not just genders.

-Love Naomi Potts

If you missed the echo olympics you missed alot of fun. The first thing we did was the event that you signed up for was described to you. After that, everyone ran down the hall and got all pumped up. Then the games began and it was intense from the start. There was speed eating, speed skating, and suit up all at once. Everyone was cheering and screaming for their teams.
The speed skating race was intense but the winner won by a long shot who was a mokan and 2nd and 3rd place were won by just inches by blooians.
The speed eating event was a devouring event in which people had to eat bowls of popcorn. Popcorn was flying everywhere and it was a close contest but moka ended up winning and bloo came in second.
Suit up was a confusing but fun event. The winners of suit up won in record time–they were blooians, but moka came strong with a silver and a bronze.

The next events were build it, sled racing, and hockey.
Build it competitors were zealous and intelligent. Both teams built amazing paper bridges but the mokan bridge held the grape fruit and brought home the gold. The blooians came strong in second.
The sled race was one of the most energetic races i’ve ever seen. First mokans had a really strong lead but blooians came back and ended up having a new world record. Mokans did have a solid race and ended up getting silver.
The two hockey games were the most passionate sports games i’ve ever been to. First the blooians were winning and then the mokans were winning. But in the end there can be only one winner and the mokans came on top with a score of 2-1 in the first game. The second game was just as fierce as the first. Bloo was winning then the mokans were winning but the blooians came out with the victory score of 4-2.

To sum all this up it was probebly the funnest olympic games i’ve ever been to and plan on coming next year. The blooians won by the score of 9-8, this olympic games was the closest one in history and probably ever. Next time the olympics happens i recommend if you didn’t go to go next time, it will change your life and how you experience these unique, intense, passionate, and fun sports.

We live in a world where being a male or female means meeting society’s
expectations of men and women.
In the scripture we see God creating male and female in God’s own image.
At Reveal we will explore what it means to express our gender in a way that leads to life and wholeness rather than discrimination and suffering.

Who: 7th-12th grade students
When: Saturday March 6, 10:00-3:00
Cost: $10
*Includes lunch*
Details:
> Live Simply… bring only what you need.
> Bring your journey group journal, bible and pen.
> Make sure you agree to the participants commitment on the registration form, and have a release form on file with the EG Offices.

Contact Natalie at 651-287-3014 or npotts@whchurch.org for more information.

This past week at echo, we talked about how God’s love for us enables us to express love for other people.
Loving other people is one of the hardest things we can do, especially when we define love as an other-oriented, unconditional, self-sacrificial attitude. Often in our lives, there are people we find it easy to get along with, and we can quickly point to that comfortable friendship or relationship and say that we love that person. Other times, people hurt us, and we daydream about punching them in the stomach (if you are the type of person who wants to appear nice all the time). Or we actually do punch them in the stomach (if you are the type of person who enjoys coming off as aggressive)! Strangely enough, that violent, vengeful feeling is an indicator that we are being presented with an opportunity to self-sacrifice, with an opportunity to demonstrate agape.

As part of the covenant that God made with Abraham, God said:
“I will bless the entire earth through your descendents.”
That line stands out to me. God intends for the people of the Kingdom to be a blessing to the entire earth! This means we have the privilege of demonstrating self-sacrificial love to all those around us. In difficult relationships, we do our best to forgive, and to reconcile. This can be an intensely painful process, especially when it means we actually need to sacrifice, and we actually need to change! This is our role as Kingdom people. We demonstrate to the world what it looks like to have whole and peaceful relationships among ourselves, as members of the body of Christ. God loves us, and trusts us to be agents of his love and healing in the world. God sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and partner with us in this task. As God’s love lives in us, may we look outward and show that love to those around us.

Students in the Moka Room, join us at the Jackson household for an afternoon of sledding and winter fun! We’ll meet at the Jacksons’ at 2, and get picked up at 6.
Their address is 6341 26th St N, Oakdale, MN 55128.

We’ll go sledding for the first hour and a half, then head back to the house for dinner and games. Bring warm outdoor clothing, your sled (if you have one), and your favorite board game.

The cost of this event is $5 bucks and that includes dinner!
Call Hannah at 612-718-5459 with questions or to RSVP.
We hope to see you there!

Enjoy this excerpt from the book Spiritual Direction, by Henri Nouwen.

How much of our energy goes into defining ourselves by deciding “I am what I do,” “I am what others say about me,” or “I am what I have”? When that’s the case, life often follows a repetitive up-and-down motion. When people speak well about me, and when I do good things, and when I have a lot, I am quite up and excited. But when I start losing, when I suddenly find out that I can’t do some task anymore, when I learn that people talk against me, when I lose my friends, then I slip into the pit.

What I want to say to you is that this whole zigzag approach is wrong. I am not what I do, and you are not what you do, or what others say about you, or what you possess. “You are God’s Beloved!” I hope that you can hear these words spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold. My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being– “You are the Beloved!”

The voice that speaks from above and from within whispers softly or declares loudly: “You are my Beloved son or daughter, on you my favor rests.” It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: “You are no good; you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable; you are nobody unless you can demonstrate the opposite.”

These negative voices are so loud and so persistent that it is easy to believe them. That’s the trap of self-rejection. It is the trap of being a fugitive hiding from your truest identity.