It was 12:30 in the morning as I snuck through the dark hallway toward the girls' sleeping room. In the dim light filtering into the window, I double and triple checked my silly string bottle to make sure the nozzle was pointed the right way. I looked back at the three guys behind me. Peter* was holding back laughter, Jason looked terrified, and Luke's eyes blazed with triumph. We were going to get our sweet revenge on the girls. The prank war they started would now belong to us.

The boys vs. girls feud on this youth group trip started when the girls plastered our faces with shaving cream as we slept. In the morning, we were furious. It was war! Almost immediately, we began planning a massive attack for the final night of our trip. Phase one: We snuck into the girls' room and stole four cans of silly string that we'd heard they brought to use on us. Phase two: We stayed up until we thought they were asleep. Then, we waited in the dark, outside the girls' door for the right moment.

I took a deep breath and signaled the start of the attack. We burst through the door and Peter began wailing on a whistle. We wanted to be sure the girls were all awake for every second of the attack. We emptied all four silly string cans on our targets and ran back to our room. Mission accomplished! We won the war.

Or did we? I woke up a few hours later with a burning sensation on my back. The other guys were up too.

"What happened?" I groggily asked.

"They got us!" Luke snapped.

"With what?"

"Toothpaste." He hissed.

It was everywhere. Even worse, the toothpaste had whitener in it, which can irritate skin and bleach clothing. My shirt was ruined.

I looked at my watch. It was 5 a.m. We needed to be packed, fed and ready to leave by 6:30. We spent the whole next hour cleaning up toothpaste from our beds, the carpeting and our bodies. We all had ruined clothing, rashes and stained sleeping bags.

Luke, who was so upset he was practically growling, said, "We aren't talking to them. Don't say anything."

And that's what we did. Everything the girls said as we prepared to leave was met with stone-cold silence. As I dragged my suitcase out to the van, I saw Jane, Luke's girlfriend, pleading him to talk. He just turned and walked away. Jane looked devastated. She yelled, "If you won't talk to me, I don't see how we can be … " Her sentence was lost in a burst of sobbing.

I froze. She'd been dating Luke for more than two years. I'd never seen Jane like that. I knew this was serious. As we got into vans, Luke muttered she was considering breaking up with him. I was shocked, but didn't know what to say. I got into one van for the trip. They got in another.

At the dinner stop that night, I found time to talk to Luke.

"Dude, I can't believe Jane almost broke up with you," I said.

"Yeah, it took us the whole eight-hour car ride to make up," he replied.

"I can't believe those stupid pranks almost destroyed your relationship with Jane."

Actually, I can't believe how something as silly as pranks could have caused all the problems they did. It wasn't just Jane and Luke's relationship. I also had friendships with some of the girls in the group strained. The pranks had gotten way out of hand.

I can't say I'll never pull a prank again, but I know now that I can't let my pride and anger enter the equation. Practical jokes can be fun, but we had made them into something hateful and harmful. We didn't go into the girls' room that night to do something we could laugh about later. We went in for revenge. We went in to soothe our bruised egos.

It's ironic this happened on a youth group trip. I mean, someone who lets pride and vengeance take over is exactly the kind of Christian I don't want to be. After all, 1 John 2:16 says, "Our foolish pride comes from this world, and so do our selfish desires and our desire to have everything we see. None of this comes from the Father" (CEV). From now on, I want to keep foolish pride out of my fun.

Ethan, a junior, wrote this during his internship with IYF. He runs cross country and composes music, including the theme song for IYF's Heroes of Rock (at igniteyourfaith.com).

Read more from 'My Life in Youth Group'

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