Deck the Halls and Dodging of the balls

This week I got to help out at a really awesome event at church, the Women's Christmas Dessert night. We got to dress up in black and white, and were given "tuxedo" aprons to complete the look! Jordana, Phil, and Erin and I acted as servers for the night, serving desserts, tea, cider and coffee to well over a hundred middle aged women, it was sweet. The church was decorated festively with coniferous and poinsettia plants galore! There was a choir, crafts, a drama, and a speaker, and over all it was just a good time for everyone to converse with each other and have a relaxing evening. On Friday at youth group we went to a local school gym and played one of my all times favorite games EVER... DODGE BALL! With only 3 balls, and a crazy bunch of hyper kids we managed to pull it off with success. It was good to be in a relaxing environment again where there isn't always so much planned. I was able to get to know the kids a bit better this week. I am finding that I definitely need to make sure I am well rested before I go to these events every Friday, because it really does effect my attitude and how I associate with people. I was really tired that night and I found I had trouble keeping my focus on all the kids around me, and keeping my interest level at its highest. I met some new girls though and with the brief little time periods I could steal with them throughout the night I managed to make some new friends. I really want to be open and transparent with these kids... pray for this.

Everybody loves Kung Fu Fighting

This week was yet another special event night (we've been having a lot of these lately). It was a family oriented night that not only involved the youth group but also parents and their children as well. We transformed the New Life Sanctuary into a the New Life Theater for the viewing of "Kung Fu Panda". It was a cute movie, and generally the youth leaders were their just for crowd control, or so we were told. I'm not quite sure what to think of that. I am kind of struggling with how much events and entertainment we pack into these youth nights, because I am finding it really hard to try to get to know these kids through that. I mean sure it creates fun environments to grow relationships through that, but I feel the lack of "actually getting to sit down and talk" times. Events are great at feeding relationships but if thats all there is then there is a certain level of deepness missing. The relationships end up a little shallow, and superficial in a sense. Often I find the best moments in the youth nights are the 15 minute connect groups we have, but a lot of the time unless its a regular youth night these special times are put a side. Its difficult and stressful trying to utilize the short beginning and end of the night times in getting to know kids, and I'm finding more and more that as each week passes, these are all the times I've got. I could use prayer on this, I'm not really sure what to do. I am excited for our next regular youth night, I guess thats all I can really say for now.

Junior High Retreat - Dare to be Different

This week I was involved in Junior High Retreat so I didn't get a chance to be at youth group Friday night. It was a great weekend. I wasn't counseling like I was in the Junior's retreat but I worked in Club Coco (Qwanoes' cafe), was an all-star for the games that were played (helped set up and run them) and did DISHES! I bumped into one of my campers over the weekend and it was really neat to see her again. Working in Club Coco was fun but challenging because I'm not completely fully trained in everything and over the weekend I needed to train other people to work there, while trying to serve line ups of kids. It was definitely stressful at times but everything worked out in the end. I also went to a youth meeting on Thursday night at New Life where we discussed what we thought about the "new" Hunger because this year they decided to try something new by making the night more 'outreach' focused. The meeting was full of tension to say the least. There was a lot of differing opinions and visions among the youth leaders and I guess I am just asking for prayer for that because I know that having emotional division like that isn't exactly healthy for the youth group. I know that we are all seeking God in this and in that I am confident that He will remain faithful in revealing one vision that we can all be united in.

TRUNK OR TREAT!

This Friday to celebrate Halloween my church decided to host an event in the church parking lot called, "Trunk or Treat". Members of the church brought their cars and decorated the trunks festively with treats inside! This atmosphere kind of gave the kids a more safer environment as opposed to trick or treating in the communities. I think over all it was a success. A lot of kids showed up and their were many cars decorated with all different sorts of themes. One thing I noticed that was pretty cool was that their was an abnormal number of native kids that came around during the night, which is awesome cuz normally not many of them go to youth group, and I know that New Life has a particular passion to reach out to that specific people group. God is good. I also got the opportunity to talk to a few pastors from Kenya that are currently speaking at New Life for a few Sundays. They were extremely friendly, and I thought it was hilarious how one of them couldn't get over how on Halloween people buy candy and just freely give it out to children. We can so easily take so many simple things for granted. Him saying that served as a good reminder to me that not every place in the world is blessed to have the kind of freedoms that we have, and because of that we should be thankful. God is gracious.