young life

Shawn and I are VERY strong supporters of the ministry of Young Life.  I could go on and on about it... but I'll leave that to you to discover, since this IS my photography blog.  In October we had the amazing privilege to spend the weekend at Windy Gap Young Life Camp in Weaverville, NC.  Although Young Life does have "family camp," that I look forward to taking our own little ones to some day when they are older, we visited on a normal teen weekend.  What an amazing thing to get to SEE Young Life operate, and SEE those kids being impacted!

Because the annual fundraising banquet was coming up, and because Scottie, our local YL area director, hadn't been able to update his photos in years due to budget constraints, I decided to volunteer my photographic skill to try to capture some awesome moments just for that purpose!  I contacted Color Inc, my preferred print lab.  Their customer service had always been beyond superb to me.  My contact there left things with "if you ever need anything, please don't hesitate to ask."

So... I DID!  I let them know about Young Life here, what I was planning to do at Windy Gap, and asked if we could have a discount to get some BIG BIG BIG prints made.  Their reply?  We were floored.  The discount was huge.  Just huge.  What a tremendous, tremendous blessing!!!  Words can't describe it.

The banquet was held on October 26.  The prints were there and hanging around.  It was the first time I've seen "my" work displayed anywhere, let alone in 12 huge 24x30 prints and 3 banners.   Utterly huge banners.  It was really, truly cool for me to see.  And I hope and pray that they somehow helped the people who attended the banquet to FEEL a small taste of what Young Life can do in the life of a teenager.  The forever impact on a life.

Here were my favorites from that weekend.