Hunger, Hope, Hopelessness and Injustice

This Friday was the very last Hunger before Christmas. So far the Hunger has been a fairly controversial event, ever since they changed the atmosphere and direction of it. With each month they try to better improve it and so far I think it has been getting better. They are starting to include some worship songs in the set list as well as secular songs, which is great but I find that they are introducing too many brand new songs that the kids don't know how to sing. For the "message", Pastor Shane interviewed an Oxygen youth leader, and a Young Adult's Group member to talk about their vision and a bit of their history. The theme of the night, along with all the other Hunger's was Hope and Hopelessness. The night was pretty good. I am getting to know most of the Extreme students, well, the females at least. They are a great group of kids, with a lot of insight and questions. I love how in our connect groups some of them are so willing to pray for each other. I am still having a bit of a hard time with the kids to leader ratio. I wish the groups were smaller or that their were more leaders but youth leaders are pretty hard to come by it seems.
This week I also had the opportunity to go with the New Life young adults group to Vancouver on Sunday to observe a ministry in the more rugged parts of the city dealing with Prostitutes and child prostitution. It was a great day over all and we all had our eyes opened to the situation that exists right at our door step. Injustice doesn't just happen in other countries, its right here, we just have to open our eyes to see it rather than pretending like it doesn't exist where we are. Our group is excited to start doing something about what is happening around us, we are still in the process of figuring out what we are going to do, but one this I will say for sure... we definitely have the motivation for it.

Produce Party!

so This week at youth was the produce party! Everyone had to bring one fruit or vegetable that resembled them in some fashion. It made for great conversation in our connect groups. I brought a mushroom! Throughout the night we played a bunch of games incorporating produce just to add to the randomness of the night. Near the end we had a photo scavenger hunt where each team was given a giant squash that they had to run around with and include in every photo. The kids loved it. We also had a previous youth leader named Devon, who talked to the kids about safe driving once they get their learners licenses, and shared his personal testimony on the subject. It was very impacting and certainly got the message across. One thing that was announced that night that pretty much shocked the whole youth group was that one of the youth leader's Sandra, who pretty much heads up the 7 and 8's extreme group was leaving at the end of December. I have been leading a connect group with her since the beginning and after he is gone I will be leading it on my own. She is very sad to leave since she has been going to New Life for 26 years and involved in the youth group for 16 years. She has no idea where they are going to go, but her and her husband feel that God is not calling them to this church anymore. I was pretty inspired by her evident devotion and trust in God's faithfulness to drop this ministry she loves and step out into the unknown to where ever God directs. One thing I know for certain, she will be missed.