Friday, June 28, 2013
Fun-Day Friday!
It’s Funday Friday! Many people chose to sleep in and skip breakfast today. (Breakfast time doesn’t change…it was still 7:15.) Lauren, Elise, Casey, Jake, Big John, Chuck and I all met to eat…and then this leader went back to bed. Hehe! We woke the rest of the crew up at 9:30 and they went through their morning routines and headed up to the high ropes course. All of us got to pick two of the four different courses/swings/rock wall to do. It was great fun to see them encourage each other and come to each other’s aid!
I don’t do unenclosed heights. It petrifies me, so I am 0 for 3 when it comes to times I have participated in the high ropes course. Today, the teens (and leaders) bullied….er, I mean encouraged me to do the swing. They put you in a harness, attach you to a rope, haul you 250 feet up into the air and expect you to pull a cord to drop yourself…where you then proceed to swing through the air. I told them I would do it (mostly because I told them I wouldn’t make them do something I wouldn’t do) and got strapped into the harness. (I was crying before I even stepped off of the ladder. It was SOOOO scary!) They hauled me up and because I didn’t want to be “that girl”, I actually pulled the cord. The teens told me that they have never heard a scream that scared in their entire life! (Perhaps my next job will be doing the voice over screams for scary movies…. ) I was glad that I did it though, because it allowed me to encourage those that were on the fence. I got some really great pictures and am hoping to get a few of them up on the blog tonight. (I’ll download all of them to facebook so the y.m. page will have them for people to tag themselves later in the week.) Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. (I’m just glad that they didn’t ask me if I would do it again! Yikes!)
After we changed for white water rafting, we headed to the mess hall for pizza, corn, salad and cookies. We answered some questions about rafting and then headed up to the outpost to check in for our trip. The guide leader did a great job going over what to do when, and double checked all of our equipment. We then boarded a bus and took a quick 20 minute ride to the put in. Our group had four rafts, with one of them being shared with another group. Erich, Christine, and I took that raft so the teens could stay together. From all of the stories I heard later, each of us had a great guide and only two people fell out! (Sorry Laura & Emily! ) The rapids were all class 3 & 4 due to the rain that they have had lately, and it was a great ride! (The water is normally about 1200 CFS, but today it was closer to 1600….just for the white water enthusiasts out there.) At the end of the trip we took the bus back to Whitewater Express and walked back to our cabins.
We took showers and headed out to Pat’s Kountry Kitchen for dinner. Apparently all of the other groups from around TeamEffort had the same idea, so it was a pretty hopping place. The food was delicious and it was great to get to spend one last-sit down meal together before we leave tomorrow.
After dinner we drove back to camp and dropped off all of those who wanted to go to the ‘bonfire/dance party’ at the Riverhouse. Meanwhile, I took those that wanted/needed to go to the Piggly Wiggly with me. It was the most entertaining trip to the grocery I have had in a long time! We laughed at the “Mountain Yeller” …which is a generic version of Mountain Dew, picked up a Piggly Wiggly Shirt and even rode the kids Merry Go Round! (Well, the teens rode the merry go round, I just laughed and took pictures.)
It was such a fun-filled day. We are planning on leaving around 9:30 or 10 tomorrow, so I am sure you will all here lots more from us when we get home. Thanks for praying for our successful trip, and please continue to hold us in your prayers as we journey home. We miss you and are excited to come back to our families and the St. Michael Community.
I don’t do unenclosed heights. It petrifies me, so I am 0 for 3 when it comes to times I have participated in the high ropes course. Today, the teens (and leaders) bullied….er, I mean encouraged me to do the swing. They put you in a harness, attach you to a rope, haul you 250 feet up into the air and expect you to pull a cord to drop yourself…where you then proceed to swing through the air. I told them I would do it (mostly because I told them I wouldn’t make them do something I wouldn’t do) and got strapped into the harness. (I was crying before I even stepped off of the ladder. It was SOOOO scary!) They hauled me up and because I didn’t want to be “that girl”, I actually pulled the cord. The teens told me that they have never heard a scream that scared in their entire life! (Perhaps my next job will be doing the voice over screams for scary movies…. ) I was glad that I did it though, because it allowed me to encourage those that were on the fence. I got some really great pictures and am hoping to get a few of them up on the blog tonight. (I’ll download all of them to facebook so the y.m. page will have them for people to tag themselves later in the week.) Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. (I’m just glad that they didn’t ask me if I would do it again! Yikes!)
After we changed for white water rafting, we headed to the mess hall for pizza, corn, salad and cookies. We answered some questions about rafting and then headed up to the outpost to check in for our trip. The guide leader did a great job going over what to do when, and double checked all of our equipment. We then boarded a bus and took a quick 20 minute ride to the put in. Our group had four rafts, with one of them being shared with another group. Erich, Christine, and I took that raft so the teens could stay together. From all of the stories I heard later, each of us had a great guide and only two people fell out! (Sorry Laura & Emily! ) The rapids were all class 3 & 4 due to the rain that they have had lately, and it was a great ride! (The water is normally about 1200 CFS
We took showers and headed out to Pat’s Kountry Kitchen for dinner. Apparently all of the other groups from around TeamEffort had the same idea, so it was a pretty hopping place. The food was delicious and it was great to get to spend one last-sit down meal together before we leave tomorrow.
After dinner we drove back to camp and dropped off all of those who wanted to go to the ‘bonfire/dance party’ at the Riverhouse. Meanwhile, I took those that wanted/needed to go to the Piggly Wiggly with me. It was the most entertaining trip to the grocery I have had in a long time! We laughed at the “Mountain Yeller” …which is a generic version of Mountain Dew, picked up a Piggly Wiggly Shirt and even rode the kids Merry Go Round! (Well, the teens rode the merry go round, I just laughed and took pictures.)
It was such a fun-filled day. We are planning on leaving around 9:30 or 10 tomorrow, so I am sure you will all here lots more from us when we get home. Thanks for praying for our successful trip, and please continue to hold us in your prayers as we journey home. We miss you and are excited to come back to our families and the St. Michael Community.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Finished with the home, but not with the LOVE
What a Blessed Day! We had so much fun and got so much accomplished that I am exhausted just thinking about it! (Ok, really I am exhausted because I did it, but let’s not split hairs here!)
We got up this morning and ran down to breakfast. We had cheez-whiz omelets and hot dogs (again) along with hashbrowns. We made the executive decision that we would eat pretty quickly so we could get to Ms. Retha’s house before the 65% chance of rain hit. (I love Jake…when I mentioned there was a 65% chance of rain, he told me he was going with the 35% chance of non-precipitation) Turns out, he was pretty much correct. It only drizzled a little bit, and that was when we were already finished with the stuff we had left to do that wasn’t undercover. (Awesome!) We were able to get the whole list of items finished before we left for the day by working together and pushing each other to be the best we could be. It was great! The painting, brush clearing, and touch up items all got done along with the pole barn getting cleaned! I was so proud of the teens!
Last night after we blogged, Erich and I went to Walmart (on a scary pitch black country road with no street lights…….just saying) to get Retha a Birthday Cake. It turns out that her birthday is Friday and with no family, she decided that she would just work and maybe go out to eat. We picked up birthday cupcakes and a card and presented it to her when we were leaving her house. She was so touched she started to cry. The teens all gave her hugs and thanked her for letting us work on her home. She asked for our address and promised to write. It was kind of sad to see her standing on the porch waving goodbye, but as Ryan put it so well, she isn’t truly alone because we left our love for her in the new refurbishments we did to her home.
We got back to camp just in time to eat lunch (chicken nuggets and limp French fries...but great salad) and change into our bathing suits to go to the blue holes. As it turns out, we called to get better directions for the holes and they were closed because they had to release the dam due to all of the recent rain. We drove to Parkersville and went swimming at the lake there instead. I thought the teens would be disappointed, but they didn’t care as long as they got to spend the time together. They played chicken, climbed up on plastic buoys to jump off of them, and just enjoyed each other’s company. It was so much fun.
We left the lake and started to drive towards Blue Ridge, GA because the counselors told us there was this great ice cream place called C Bolts that we had to try. We got to the other side of Copperhill and realized that the work site we had the last time we were here was only about a block away, so we went and revisited it. Our porch and side steps/deck were still standing and in great shape! (Kudos to the team that went 4 years ago! ) Mrs. Galloway came out and said Hi to us and everything. It was kind of fun to revisit that time with our seniors.
After we left the Galloways, we stopped at the Tn/GA line and got our picture taken in two places at once! Casey was in heaven because she said it was on her bucket list. The rest of us hammed it up for the camera. We drove another 20 minutes into Blue Ridge and had dinner (courtesy of ‘Big’ John!) at the Serenity Garden Café. It was super yummy and a family stopped us to thank us for serving their community. It was neat to see the teens get recognized for what they did by total strangers.
We walked across the street and had ice cream at the 3 Sisters Shop, (They won an award at the daytime emmy’s, so it was fun to see it in real life) and then headed back to chapel.
Tonight’s chapel was all about the idea of taking it home and knowing that we are loved by God. It was fun to sing and dance for Jesus one last time and then we watched a video that the counselors made for all of the groups. Dan gave the witness talk and then each individual group was led outside to their tiki torch that was lit and we circled around it. Eli gave me a bucket of sand and explained to the teens that in order to build our foundation on the “The Rock of Jesus” we had to be willing to give up the ‘sandy foundation’ in our lives. That is, whatever is holding us back in our faith lives. Each teen was to take a handful of sand and then release it at some point of the evening, symbolizing leaving their sandy foundation and returning to the Rock that is Jesus Christ. Eli then left to go and play the guitar for all of the groups and I went around the circle and asked God’s blessing on each of the teens as I prayed over them. After everyone was blessed, we tossed our sand over our shoulders and went to the cross in the middle of the field. At the base of the cross was a giant metal tub of sand with rocks hidden at the bottom. We ‘dug’ through the sand to get our rock and then went back to the chapel to have our individual group time. We talked a lot about our day, and did our “best part of the day, Hey Gods, Yeah Gods, and Mad Props.” It was very special because the teens bought each of the leaders plastic ducks (long story….ask one of us who went) that represented our personalities. (Have I told you in this post that I love our teens yet?)
Now we are off to bed (or to blog) and many of us will choose to sleep in tomorrow morning. It’s another big day. Praying for lots of fun and laughter. We miss you all and pray for you nightly!
We got up this morning and ran down to breakfast. We had cheez-whiz omelets and hot dogs (again) along with hashbrowns. We made the executive decision that we would eat pretty quickly so we could get to Ms. Retha’s house before the 65% chance of rain hit. (I love Jake…when I mentioned there was a 65% chance of rain, he told me he was going with the 35% chance of non-precipitation) Turns out, he was pretty much correct. It only drizzled a little bit, and that was when we were already finished with the stuff we had left to do that wasn’t undercover. (Awesome!) We were able to get the whole list of items finished before we left for the day by working together and pushing each other to be the best we could be. It was great! The painting, brush clearing, and touch up items all got done along with the pole barn getting cleaned! I was so proud of the teens!
Last night after we blogged, Erich and I went to Walmart (on a scary pitch black country road with no street lights…….just saying) to get Retha a Birthday Cake. It turns out that her birthday is Friday and with no family, she decided that she would just work and maybe go out to eat. We picked up birthday cupcakes and a card and presented it to her when we were leaving her house. She was so touched she started to cry. The teens all gave her hugs and thanked her for letting us work on her home. She asked for our address and promised to write. It was kind of sad to see her standing on the porch waving goodbye, but as Ryan put it so well, she isn’t truly alone because we left our love for her in the new refurbishments we did to her home.
We got back to camp just in time to eat lunch (chicken nuggets and limp French fries...but great salad) and change into our bathing suits to go to the blue holes. As it turns out, we called to get better directions for the holes and they were closed because they had to release the dam due to all of the recent rain. We drove to Parkersville and went swimming at the lake there instead. I thought the teens would be disappointed, but they didn’t care as long as they got to spend the time together. They played chicken, climbed up on plastic buoys to jump off of them, and just enjoyed each other’s company. It was so much fun.
We left the lake and started to drive towards Blue Ridge, GA because the counselors told us there was this great ice cream place called C Bolts that we had to try. We got to the other side of Copperhill and realized that the work site we had the last time we were here was only about a block away, so we went and revisited it. Our porch and side steps/deck were still standing and in great shape! (Kudos to the team that went 4 years ago! ) Mrs. Galloway came out and said Hi to us and everything. It was kind of fun to revisit that time with our seniors.
After we left the Galloways, we stopped at the Tn/GA line and got our picture taken in two places at once! Casey was in heaven because she said it was on her bucket list. The rest of us hammed it up for the camera. We drove another 20 minutes into Blue Ridge and had dinner (courtesy of ‘Big’ John!) at the Serenity Garden Café. It was super yummy and a family stopped us to thank us for serving their community. It was neat to see the teens get recognized for what they did by total strangers.
We walked across the street and had ice cream at the 3 Sisters Shop, (They won an award at the daytime emmy’s, so it was fun to see it in real life) and then headed back to chapel.
Tonight’s chapel was all about the idea of taking it home and knowing that we are loved by God. It was fun to sing and dance for Jesus one last time and then we watched a video that the counselors made for all of the groups. Dan gave the witness talk and then each individual group was led outside to their tiki torch that was lit and we circled around it. Eli gave me a bucket of sand and explained to the teens that in order to build our foundation on the “The Rock of Jesus” we had to be willing to give up the ‘sandy foundation’ in our lives. That is, whatever is holding us back in our faith lives. Each teen was to take a handful of sand and then release it at some point of the evening, symbolizing leaving their sandy foundation and returning to the Rock that is Jesus Christ. Eli then left to go and play the guitar for all of the groups and I went around the circle and asked God’s blessing on each of the teens as I prayed over them. After everyone was blessed, we tossed our sand over our shoulders and went to the cross in the middle of the field. At the base of the cross was a giant metal tub of sand with rocks hidden at the bottom. We ‘dug’ through the sand to get our rock and then went back to the chapel to have our individual group time. We talked a lot about our day, and did our “best part of the day, Hey Gods, Yeah Gods, and Mad Props.” It was very special because the teens bought each of the leaders plastic ducks (long story….ask one of us who went) that represented our personalities. (Have I told you in this post that I love our teens yet?)
Now we are off to bed (or to blog) and many of us will choose to sleep in tomorrow morning. It’s another big day. Praying for lots of fun and laughter. We miss you all and pray for you nightly!
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Work Shirt Wednesday!
Hooray! I feel so much better today! (That list I told you about yesterday……we rocked it!) Christine and I got the girls up at 6:45 (like normal) and then shooed them out to get breakfast. We stayed back because it is Jen’s 18th birthday and we wanted to decorate the cabin. We put balloons on the rafters, hung a huge banner outside on the porch, and hung streamers from the top of her bunk bed. (Christine bought Jen her very own trim paint brush for her birthday. These are a hot commodity on the worksite. Ha!)
Most of the teens dressed in TeamEffort ‘work shirts’ today for Work Shirt Wednesday. They are a silly mechanic/factory looking uniform that says TeamEffort on the back and a random name on the front. They were contemplating calling each other by their shirt name….so all day you saw them looking down at their shirt to see if someone was calling their name. (Names like Pierre, Hollywood, Hitesh, Mohammed, Hawa etc.) Very silly fun!
After our breakfast (same as yesterday) and morning commute (where the seniors surprised me and switched vans so I could spend some time with them also), we opened our day with prayer. Chuck started, Eli did the devotional, and John did the memorarae. We offered up praise to God whether it rained or shined…but we were definitely hoping for the shine! We had so much to get done. We sang Happy Birthday to Jen and presented her with a funny headband that says, “It’s my 18th birthday”. She wore it all day! (I think she just did it to make us happy.)
Last night at group time we laid out who was doing what. Eli started to tell the group what needed to be done and the teens immediately told him that they had their jobs down and got to it. (It cracked me up.) Within minutes an assembly line was started to unload John’s truck, the roofers hopped up the ladder, the outside painting crew started the primer, the tools for the screen door installers were set out, and the weed whackers were roaring. The teens worked non-stop until 12:30 when the roof was finally finished. (We made the executive decision that we weren’t going to eat lunch until it was done…so thank our good God for the Endres family who sent tons of snacks and chips for us to munch on while working. They were devoured!)
At lunch (sandwiches, chips, and snacks!), we sat down and discussed our plan of attack for the afternoon. The outside painters noticed that the soffits were rotting and that there were wasp nests underneath the overhang boards. We decided to change out the soffits and found a squirrel’s nest up there as well. I made the teens get out from under the attached carport until I could take care of the nests. (There ended up being 12 of them! Ugh…so scary!) After the walls were scraped (by Elise, Lauren, Jake, and Lydia) we started to get extra people on it. (John and Chuck finished installing the new screen door. ‘Big’ John, Sara, Laura, & Ryan finished the roof. Erich, Emily, Caitlin, & Sam finished all of the landscape.) Meanwhile, Jen, McKenzie, Casey, Christine, and Megan were inside painting. Joe was running around making sure everything was running smoothly and doing all of the little behind the scenes jobs that need to be done and no one else wants to do.
It did drizzle just a little bit, but that didn’t stop any of us from getting our jobs done. (We only work a half day tomorrow, but think we can get the house painted, the gutters hung, and the inside living room done. Wish us luck!) God really did bless us with a productive day! (Eli told me at the end of the day that we did two weeks’ worth of work in our week….I corrected him (jokingly) and said that we did two weeks’ worth of work in three days!) I really am so proud of these teens! They represent our parish very well!
When we got back to camp, we took showers and had a little down time before dinner. We walked to the mess hall and made Jen drink out of a Happy Birthday Glass (Thanks Laurie!) and after dinner we ‘surprised’ her with a cake and candles. We sang (really loud) to her and then everyone started clapping for her. (Emily wouldn’t let her take the headband off, so everyone knew it was her big day. I’m not so sure she was happy about this, but she was a really good sport.) Today was the first day I didn’t have to go to a store to get anything after dinner, so Christine and I went back to the cabin to rest. (Yeah!)
Our group was the first to get in line for Chapel again, and loved having the front row. (If I can get the video to load, you can watch them ‘dancing in’ the worship team. It is so fun to see them screaming and jumping around excited to be worshiping God. After the dancing and stretching, the real praise began. We sang songs projected onto the large screen and then heard Oscar’s witness talk. He discussed how we need to know that God is on our side in hard times and that no matter how bad things get, He will take care of us. We need to persevere through them, not try to circumvent them because it will make us stronger. That endurance leads to character….character leads to hope….and hope is in the power of God. He did a great job. He made each person look around at their own youth group and said that, “These are the people you are going home with. This is your spiritual support. Be that support for each other; especially in times of need.” You could see some tears in our teen’s eyes when they realized that they truly were loved by each person here. (Ok, so there were tears in my eyes too.) Have I mentioned what a great group of teens we have?!
Our small group time came and once again was filled with laughter and sharing. I really love this time of the day most. I get to hear all of the work site stories that I miss because I run around all day from group to group. We share our “best part of the day” and do Hey Gods, Yeah Gods, & Mad Props. Tonight we ended with ‘glow bracelets’ in honor of Jen’s birthday and then were told that they had to hook up with someone who had the same color bracelet that they did (either tonight before bed or tomorrow morning) and find out what their partner needs help with in their spiritual life. We made a pledge to pray for them and we will be reminded to do just that throughout the day (and weeks) to come.
It was a great day. We got a lot accomplished….but even better, we saw the Holy Spirit in everything we did and everyone we met. Please continue to pray for us….as we pray for you nightly.
(P.S. Hope everyone weathered the storms back home ok. My phone kept going off with weather alerts!)
Most of the teens dressed in TeamEffort ‘work shirts’ today for Work Shirt Wednesday. They are a silly mechanic/factory looking uniform that says TeamEffort on the back and a random name on the front. They were contemplating calling each other by their shirt name….so all day you saw them looking down at their shirt to see if someone was calling their name. (Names like Pierre, Hollywood, Hitesh, Mohammed, Hawa etc.) Very silly fun!
After our breakfast (same as yesterday) and morning commute (where the seniors surprised me and switched vans so I could spend some time with them also), we opened our day with prayer. Chuck started, Eli did the devotional, and John did the memorarae. We offered up praise to God whether it rained or shined…but we were definitely hoping for the shine! We had so much to get done. We sang Happy Birthday to Jen and presented her with a funny headband that says, “It’s my 18th birthday”. She wore it all day! (I think she just did it to make us happy.)
Last night at group time we laid out who was doing what. Eli started to tell the group what needed to be done and the teens immediately told him that they had their jobs down and got to it. (It cracked me up.) Within minutes an assembly line was started to unload John’s truck, the roofers hopped up the ladder, the outside painting crew started the primer, the tools for the screen door installers were set out, and the weed whackers were roaring. The teens worked non-stop until 12:30 when the roof was finally finished. (We made the executive decision that we weren’t going to eat lunch until it was done…so thank our good God for the Endres family who sent tons of snacks and chips for us to munch on while working. They were devoured!)
At lunch (sandwiches, chips, and snacks!), we sat down and discussed our plan of attack for the afternoon. The outside painters noticed that the soffits were rotting and that there were wasp nests underneath the overhang boards. We decided to change out the soffits and found a squirrel’s nest up there as well. I made the teens get out from under the attached carport until I could take care of the nests. (There ended up being 12 of them! Ugh…so scary!) After the walls were scraped (by Elise, Lauren, Jake, and Lydia) we started to get extra people on it. (John and Chuck finished installing the new screen door. ‘Big’ John, Sara, Laura, & Ryan finished the roof. Erich, Emily, Caitlin, & Sam finished all of the landscape.) Meanwhile, Jen, McKenzie, Casey, Christine, and Megan were inside painting. Joe was running around making sure everything was running smoothly and doing all of the little behind the scenes jobs that need to be done and no one else wants to do.
It did drizzle just a little bit, but that didn’t stop any of us from getting our jobs done. (We only work a half day tomorrow, but think we can get the house painted, the gutters hung, and the inside living room done. Wish us luck!) God really did bless us with a productive day! (Eli told me at the end of the day that we did two weeks’ worth of work in our week….I corrected him (jokingly) and said that we did two weeks’ worth of work in three days!) I really am so proud of these teens! They represent our parish very well!
When we got back to camp, we took showers and had a little down time before dinner. We walked to the mess hall and made Jen drink out of a Happy Birthday Glass (Thanks Laurie!) and after dinner we ‘surprised’ her with a cake and candles. We sang (really loud) to her and then everyone started clapping for her. (Emily wouldn’t let her take the headband off, so everyone knew it was her big day. I’m not so sure she was happy about this, but she was a really good sport.) Today was the first day I didn’t have to go to a store to get anything after dinner, so Christine and I went back to the cabin to rest. (Yeah!)
Our group was the first to get in line for Chapel again, and loved having the front row. (If I can get the video to load, you can watch them ‘dancing in’ the worship team. It is so fun to see them screaming and jumping around excited to be worshiping God. After the dancing and stretching, the real praise began. We sang songs projected onto the large screen and then heard Oscar’s witness talk. He discussed how we need to know that God is on our side in hard times and that no matter how bad things get, He will take care of us. We need to persevere through them, not try to circumvent them because it will make us stronger. That endurance leads to character….character leads to hope….and hope is in the power of God. He did a great job. He made each person look around at their own youth group and said that, “These are the people you are going home with. This is your spiritual support. Be that support for each other; especially in times of need.” You could see some tears in our teen’s eyes when they realized that they truly were loved by each person here. (Ok, so there were tears in my eyes too.) Have I mentioned what a great group of teens we have?!
Our small group time came and once again was filled with laughter and sharing. I really love this time of the day most. I get to hear all of the work site stories that I miss because I run around all day from group to group. We share our “best part of the day” and do Hey Gods, Yeah Gods, & Mad Props. Tonight we ended with ‘glow bracelets’ in honor of Jen’s birthday and then were told that they had to hook up with someone who had the same color bracelet that they did (either tonight before bed or tomorrow morning) and find out what their partner needs help with in their spiritual life. We made a pledge to pray for them and we will be reminded to do just that throughout the day (and weeks) to come.
It was a great day. We got a lot accomplished….but even better, we saw the Holy Spirit in everything we did and everyone we met. Please continue to pray for us….as we pray for you nightly.
(P.S. Hope everyone weathered the storms back home ok. My phone kept going off with weather alerts!)
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
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