Banquet

     Tuesday night we hosted our annual banquet. The banquet is our biggest fundraising event of the year and it plays a large part in keeping Young Life in Northwest Arkansas.

     Many people don’t really understand Young Life until they’ve seen camp. The uncontrollable laughter and joy of watching program; the adventure and adrenaline rushes of overcoming fears; the surprises; the delicious food; the speaker revealing Truth and leaders unconditionally loving and pursuing kids are what make Young Life camp the “best week of your life.” Our desire for the banquet was to give our guests just an idea, a small experience, of this. We had about 80 incredible high school and college volunteers to make this possible.

     One element of Young Life camp that we implemented into the banquet was tableau. Tableau is a collection of old-timey, western scenes: a wedding, a fight, children playing tag, axing a log, cooking around a fire… When a gunshot sounds, everyone comes to life, acts out their scene, and at the sound of another gunshot, everyone freezes. We put on our own tableau and program then invited everyone inside Pratt Place Inn and Barn where we spent the rest of our evening. We had a hard-working team of volunteers serve our guests Penguin Ed’s Barbeque dinner.

     From there, we introduced our speaker, Bob Goff, author of Love Does. We were so excited to have him come and share some of his story with us. His message was consistent with Young Life’s. Love does. It is never stationary. Our desire is to meet kids right where they are. We want to enter into their world and live life with them; to show the love of Christ to adolescents ages 12-22 in Northwest Arkansas.

     Despite all obstacles we ran into while planning this banquet, God provided, and we raised more money than we ever have in the past. We’d like to thank all of our sponsors, donors, table hosts, and volunteers for making all of this possible!

Amy Stutts
Area Admin