Recently BookFreak , AnonymousGirl,Dragontougue, three friends and I attended the Rebelution Conference in Denver.   The Conference's next stops are  Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas on July 21 and Indianapolis, Indiana on September 15.  If you are a teen or have teens and can get there, hang the price of gas, load up the kids, and go!  You will have an incredible and encouraging experience.  More informantion can be found at www.TheRebelution.com .

So, now to tell you about my own experience.  We left Friday at 12:30 PM.  There were seven teen girls, my Aunt and one of her friends, and a baby, our family's youngest Rebelutionary, KC.  We spent the trip out listening to tapes and taking pictures of each other. 

We got to the home of our host family around 7:00 PM.  The kids welcomed us, showed us around, and gave us rides in the pony cart.  Then all fifteen of us got on the trampoline and jumped around.  One game was for one person to sit in the middle and everyone else to stand around the edge, then everyone around the edge would jump in and land near the sitting person at the same time.  The sitting person would go flying up into the air.  It was fun.  There was another game where someone would run around on the tramp with their eyes closed and try and catch everyone else.  You had six 'lives', meaning the the person who was 'it' could touch you six times before you became 'it'. 

After playing for a while we went in and ate lasanga, french bread, green beans and salad.  Then we all went down to the basement to play.  Anony and one of the boys whose name was Ben (I think, there were nine of them to keep straight) played chess.  Dragon...I'm not sure what Dragon was doing actually.  Most likely raiding the bookshelves.  Book and a couple friends played risk with three or four other kids.  I watched the chess game.  There was one very very very very hyper four-year-old girl there.  She was very cute, but had these two catterpillers that she would put on your back or in your hair.  As the hour grew later, the craziness incresed.  The four-year-old girl, her name was Serenity, and one of her brothers would pick out a target person, tackle them, pin them to the floor and hold them there while another one of the boys would tickle said unfortunate victim.  I became a popular target because I put up with the whole thing.  Dragon appeared, finally, had a wresleing match with the fourteen-year-old girl, Brittney, and did some impresive juggling with Ben.   Bedtime was havoc, but we were all beded down by midnight and asleep by one or two in the morning.

We were all aroused at 5:45 AM the next morning.  The goal was to leave for the conference at 7:00 AM.  We were out of the house at 7:05 AM.  We got the the church where the conference was being held around 8:30 AM.  We went inside, signed up, got name tags and audience response keypads, bounced around the lobby, got Rebelution T-shirts that had the Rebelution battle cry 'Do Hard Things' on them, went to the restroom and changed into the T-shirts, and went into the auditorium to hear the speakers.

Eighteen-year-old Alex Harris was the first speaker.  His subject was 'The Myth of Adolescence'.  He basicly talked about how being a teen doesn't give you licence to goof off.  Your teen years are your launch pad into adulthood and you should do something with them.  He gave three examples of teens of the past who did great things during teenagehood:  

1. George Washington, who had mastered Geometry, Trig and Calculus by the time he was sixteen.   At seventeen he became a surveyor, and at twenty he was a major in the militia.

2. David Farragut, who at twelve was given command of a British ship that had been captured by the Americans during the War of 1812.  His job was to take the ship and it's captured crew back to America.  The British captain was not happy about being ordered around by a twelve-year-old boy and said he was going to get his pistols.  David ordered that if the British captain appeared on deck with his firearms, he would be shot and thrown overboard.  The captain stayed below.  

3. Andrew Carnegie, who became a telegraph delivery boy at 14, and before he was out of his teens was the personal telegraph operator for the 'big guy' of the telegraph company.

There was a break after that talk.  We visited the water fountain ect. until the next talk.  Book, Anony and two friends grabbed Alex and got their picture taken with him, then returned and waved the picture under my nose while I turned green with envy.

The second talk was done by Alex's twin brother, Brett.  His subject was 'Do Hard Things'.  He talked about how his first shower nearly killed him because he was so scared.  He explained that everyone has a 'first shower' in everything.  He said that we should challenge ourselves to do more that our society expects of us.  He gave us this list. 

Doing hard things will look like...

1. Fighting sin in your life.  Alot of time the right thing isn't easy.  Doing hard things is often doing the right things.

2. Battleing discouragement and complacency.   Alot of times the good things are the ones that are hardest to get.  Don't get discouraged if you don't accomplish something the first time.  Keep trying.  Always push your limits.  Don't stop just because you breezed to the top of your class.  Push yourself further, as far as you can go.

3. Doing more than is required.  When you do more, you get stronger.  The Vikings didn't just go into battle, they rowed themselves there, and because of that were very strong.

4. Getting over your fear of failure.  Don't give up on something just because you think you'll fail.  Do your best on it.  Someone else may breeze through a hundred push-ups while you gasp on the floor, but you got more of a workout than they did.

Hard things are...

5. Different for each person.  A boy's 'hard things' are different than a girl's 'hard things'.  

6. Small things.  Sometimes hard things don't make the local paper.  They may just be a small accomplishment that only you and your family and friends know about.  That doesn't make it something unimportant because you grew from it, and that's the important thing.

7. Your best.  You may not do as well at something as someone else, but then, your best may be different from theirs.

  Then there was another break.  We ate pizza, salad and lemonade, then Anony and I grabbed KC and showed her off to Alex and asked who was speaking next and told him that he and his brother were brilliant.

After the break, Mr. Harris got up to talk.  His subject was 'Character Counts'.  He talked about how we should be good inside and out, not just outside.  In fact, his talk was so facinating that I have very few notes on it and therefore can't tell you alot about it besides that it was brillient and encouraging.

Then there was another break.  Book, Anony, and three friends engaged Alex in conversation while I went over to Brett and asked him If he and his brother wouldnt' mind getting their picture taken with me and several friends.  He agreed and so we all traipsed out to the lobby and got our picture taken with them.  It was cool.

The last talk was done by Alex, Brett and their dad.  It was on Companionship. 

 Alex did part one of the companionship talk and stressed the necessity of being around likeminded people who can encourage you, wise people who can advise you and listing to good music, reading good books and watching good movies so that you will not be led astray by your companions.

Mr. Harris did part two of the companionship talk.  His talk was directed more toward the parents.  He encouraged them to spend time with their kids and coach them because the parental influence is strong.

Brett did the last part of the companionship talk.  He encourage us to find heros and make friends with dead people and make them our heros.  We need examples and sometimes the people who can give those good examples are dead, so we need to make friends with them by reading biograpys about them and things that they wrote.  He told us that we are not half as alone as we think we are.  He encouraged us to step out, do something hard, and find the secret Rebelutionarys.  He encouraged us to seek out and learn from the Godly people in our lives.

There are alot more to these talks than I have put down.  You can find suplementary articals at The Rebelution website or just go to the conference nearest you and hear them in person.

During the trip back home we all got involved in some deep conversations.  After that we went to sleep, getting back home around midnight.  There are tons of pictures, some of which I will eventually post.