Juniors Retreat!

So this week I didn't go to youth group on Friday night like I normally do because I signed up to help out with the Juniors Retreat for the weekend. The theme for the retreat was "Lean on Me" and it was definitely an awesome couple of days. I was a counselor for four 11 year old girls named Lora, Sidney, Emily, and Megan. They were awesome girls! When they first arrived one of the first things they told me was, "I hope your a party animal cuz we are!". I was able to calculate at that moment exactly how much sleep the weekend didn't promise me. We decorated our room with Halloween decorations one of the girl's brought and gave each other nick names... I was referred to as "Bob" for the duration of the weekend. Saturday was a jam packed day with tons of games, and Q towns. In the evening we went into Duncan and swam at the new wave pool they built. Sunday was a hard day because I had to say good bye to them. They were a great group of girls. I love it when kids are still at that young "boys are smelly" age, because they are so full of enthusiasm and openness to life. They may be a bit harder to control and calm down at times but when you do get them calmed down enough to talk a bit about God I find it can really be very impacting for them. Even though being a counselor can take a lot out of you, especially in the midst of college courses; it is so rewarding and worth it to experience a weekend amongst kids and being able to share with them who God is and how much he loves us. Today was my first day of classes into my Hermeneutics course and I can notice the effect of not getting enough sleep this past weekend is having on me, but I wouldn't have traded this weekend for anything.

Hunger

This week was the second hunger we've had in the year. It was a really neat night. Apparently they designed this hunger to be sort of a new "hunger" in which it was structured differently from the previous ones. For example, the music they played was all contemporary stuff you would hear on the radio like U2 or Cold Play, as opposed to regular church worship music. The message was structured differently too. Instead of the pastor walking up on stage and preaching for half an hour they designed it to resemble more of an interview atmosphere with table and chairs props. I think the reason they did this was to attract more kids who arent regular church-goers. I thought that it worked well, and the kids were entertained, but it was also hard to keep their attention. It was nice to see some friendly faces of some kids I haven't seen in a couple of weeks though. One of my campers came that night and she didn't really come with anyone so we just hung out together the whole night. It was awesome. I'm struggling a bit to get know better the extreme group, but Im sure that will improve as times goes on, I just need to be patient. This next Friday I will be counseling all weekend for the Juniors retreat being held at Camp Qwanoes so I wont be at youth group for that week. I cant wait!

Stone Soup!

So this week was my second week with the Extreme group. Each youth was asked to bring an ingredient and we put them all together to make one delicious soup! It was a fun night. We had to rotate the kids in groups to be in the kitchen because it would have been a nightmare trying to fit all of them in at once. While the other groups were waiting for their turn to make soup we played some games in the chapel, like human memory. Its basically just like a normal memory match up game with cards or what not but in this game you pair up with a partner and form one sound between the two of you and then everyone spreads out in the room and sits down while two people are picked to match up all the pairs. Eventually that game got boring though and we could tell that the kids were getting a little antsy so we decided to try out a new game called circle soccer. That was a crazy game! the ball went flying everywhere and lets just say one of the church ceiling lights may or may not have a shell on it anymore. We were running out of games so I pulled out an old game I learned from youth group called Horse, night, and rider. The kids loved it. I must say that kids that age have an extremely hard time listening and paying attention, but none the less I still love their craziness. Sometimes its hard to keep up with them but I love the life and excitement in them, and after a certain amount of games it is possible to quite them down for a few minutes to be in our connect groups. My connect group was awesome and I am slowly learning some names and more about them. One thing we always do in my group is prayer requests and I find it amazing when it comes to praying for each other that my group is always all over it and they are willing to step outside of their comfort zone to lift one of their friends up. I love it!

Games Games and More Games!

This week after some thought and prayer I made the decision to switch out of leading Oxygen (Gr. 9-11) and into Extreme (Gr. 8 and 9). I feel that this would work out better long term considering I plan on attending this church indefinitely. It would give me a chance to get to know the younger group and grow with them as time goes on. So I plunged into the Extreme this week and we played a ton of ice breaker games to get to know each other. Right away I felt right at home with all of the energy and young excitement that was packed in that room. The kids are great and I look forward to getting to know them as the year progresses. Names are going to be tricky for me but I hope that being in a connect group will be able to assist me in that. This week I got to lead a devotional in my connect group a long side one of the other major youth leader's Sandra. It was an awesome night. To top it all off I ran into one of my campers from this summer at the end of the night and we chatted about how her summer went and how she was doing now. Hopefully she will be able to start coming to Extreme in the future if her schedule allows for it. So Yah... this week was great!