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.

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.

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.