ok, this edition of “overheard at my 7th grade guys small group” contains stuff that wasn’t actually “overheard.” it was “overread.”

let me ‘splain, lucy:

about a month ago, at our middle school ministry’s small group kick off night, the guys all filled out information sheets. i wasn’t there that night (my co-leader, ian robertson, was there). our middle school pastor recently emailed scans of these sheets to me.

first of all: wow, i need to cut my 9th grade son some slack on his handwriting. i forgot what 7th grade guy handwriting looks like. god save us.

the most consistently interesting answers were to the question “two words that describe you”:

• awesome, epic
• scary, strange
• uh, 6 thousand
• funny, weird
• awesome
• athletic, awesome
• awesome and awesome
• awesome & epic
• awesome, [his name]
• awesome, funny
• awesome, energetic, fun
• good and bad

(marko comment: three things are immediately clear from the above list. 1: my group is awesome. 2: “awesome” has not gone out of style. 3: a few of my guys are really creative and/or quirky!)

or, how about the disparity of the responses to the question “favorite vacation spot”:

• slide jams (marko comment: apparently, these are longboard skating competitions that involve lots of sliding sideways!)
• napili bay, maui
• beach
• hawaii
• hawaii
• minnesota (marko comment: huh?)
• sarumon’s eye
• i haven’t been to too many places!
• the bermuda triangle
• hawaii
• slide jams

(marko comment: seems to be a few themes there)

the most touching part of the whole thing was reading the responses to the question “three most influential people in your life right now.” three of the guys wrote my name down. i got a little choked up when i read those, and was reminded what a weighty role it is to lead this goofy little group.