Day 6 - Wednesday - Motorcycles and Limo's

It's Wednesday and our last full day of activities.  I always like Wednesday.  The motorcycles and car rides are always a hit.  We also have a surprise limo ride going from the school to the church.  I hope they like that as well.  I'm sure they will.  

Before I get into the pictures of the day, I just wanted to point out that some of you may think that this SERVE site is a Calvin only thing.  Though it is held at Calvin CRC, and endorsed by our church Ministry Board as a ministry of Calvin,  it was never designed to be just a Calvin SERVE project.  From day one our planning team was from different churches, and remains that way.  

I costs about $9,000 to run this site, and those funds have not come solely from Calvin either.  We do have a budget item for SERVE, but we also receive funds from Kanata, Barrhaven, Kemptville, Williamsburg, and Calvary CRC's, as well as a church plant in Ottawa called Living Hope.   All have graciously supported our funding requests over the years and you, and they, need to know that this SERVE site would not exist without that financial support.  

There is also prayer and volunteer support that come from many of these churches.  It is wonderful to see the broader CRC community come together to support the Special Needs SERVE site.  I thank God for their commitment to it.    We might not host an Ottawa site next year, giving our team a rest, but I do hope we return again in 2012 and that these churches, and others will catch the vision of this ministry and support us again.  

Now, on to the day's pictures and comments........You need to know that there were over 500 pictures taken today.  Wednesday is always the special day for our participants and LOTS of pictures get taken this day.  I've just finished going through them, and I am sorry to say that I won't be putting all of them on the blog.  Mentors and Participants will receive copies of all the pictures and video (eventually), so you'll have the chance to see all those memories soon.  

Morning began as always.  I almost slept in; jumped out of bed and grabbed my camera to start taking pictures.  The first person I saw was Sara going through her warm fuzzy mailbox.  She just loves getting up each morning to get them. 

Here's Shellie working hard on her computer, planning her next talk.  She's a gifted speaker, but not necessarily as organized as ME  (tee, hee).  

The kitchen crew finished the morning preparation time and ready to serve us breakfast.  

Some of the group had a harder time getting up. Rey went in to wake them up.  

Hey Rey!  Nice to see that smilin' face again.  I'll miss that in a couple of days.  

Fayth is smiling too.  She must have had her 3 cups of coffee already.  Reading the blog I see.  I like Fayth.  

Breakfast is served again.  

So, Hannah is holding her hair.  There's a reason for that.  You see, I couldn't help it.  It looked so nice that I just HAD to mess it up.  For some reason she got mad at me.  I couldn't figure out why  : ) .  

Greg has great table manners.  Your parents taught you well.  

Hey, there's my son, Chris.  I haven't seen much of him this SERVE.  Actually, that's one thing that I miss about doing this SERVE.  I don't get to get to know everyone well because everyone is so busy doing what we have  to do to make the SERVE GREAT.   So, to all the Mentors and Participants, even though I don't know you all well, I've seen lots of great things from you, and I'm proud of you all.  

On a lighter note, I see that Rachel decided to see if she could beat Alex in an arm wrestle.  I don't think she won. : (  

I am going to skip showing you work site pictures today.  It was our last day of work sites, but I'm tired, and wanted to show you the new things today instead.  Forgive me if you can.  So, after work and lunch it was time for our small groups again.  Each group was sent to different stations to get/do things. I was in my office and had to give out magazines to each group, but not before they gave me 10 jumping jacks.  It was fun to watch.  

Other places had them doing other things, like group handshakes and stuff.  Again, I'm amazed at the talent of our small group planners.  

Small group time is a time to get to know each other better.  The team has been enjoying their small group times very much.  

Here's a picture of the room assignments.  Each person had to find their own picture when they arrived at the church to see where they would be sleeping.  

Speaking of rooms, here's a GREAT looking one, don't you think.  You can barely see the floor!

After small group it was time for the highlight of the week for most of the team.  Motorcycle and car rides.  Everyone just loves taking these rides.  

Some nice cars to drive in too.  

Kyle enjoyed himself.  

A convertible was another form of transportation.  Many took advantage of the vehicle to cool off from the heat and humidity of the day.  

John and Rachel really liked the red mustang.  

Here are the drives for the day.  Thanks a bunch for putting smiles on everyone's faces.  

After the rides it was time to get all dolled up for our dinner.  Kayla is getting her hair done.  

Sara is letting her nails dry.  

Alexa getting her hair done.  

Alexa and Charlotte ready to go.  

Andrea and Kayla.  

Tyler, you dress up VERY nice.  

So, the surprise for the day was the rental of a stretch limo.  Here it is.  

It holds 18, so we went in three groups to get everyone to have a ride in it.  Here is the driver helping us into the limo.  

One of the groups getting ready to get inside....yes, they were a bit squished.  

As you can see here.  But they thought it was a neat thing.  Thank you to the couple who donated this to our SERVE site.  

Here are the boys enjoying the ride to the church.  No, the driver was not stopping suddenly.....

Chris and Jacob dreaming about days when they can do this for real?  

Once at the church, it was time for a group shot.  We look quite nice if you ask me.  

Now here's a funny story.  Each year Rey, Evert and myself get dressed up in our suits.  I like to brag to Shellie about this, and this year she decided to do something about it.  She and Janine purchased suits at the BFM store and got dressed up in man suits so they too could be like us.  I didn't know that they were so jealous of men's clothing.   It was very funny, actually, and they looked, well, rather masculine if you ask me.  They also discovered that suits can be VERY warm on days like today, so they TOO learned something new today.  No longer are we the 3 amigo's,  we are now the 5 amigets.  

In keeping with our inspector gadget theme, here we are striking up a fun pose for the camera.  

But all is not lost.  Kyle helped Evert and me still get a picture with the NEW 3 amigo's.  Welcome to the club Kyle.  

Finally it was time to sit down for our delicious meal.  

Everyone looked so nice.  

We once again had Harold play the guitar and harmonica for us.  This year was especially fun.  

During dinner Alex decided it was time to dance to the music.  He spent some time with Harold in the middle of the group. ......

. . . Then he decided he wanted to dance with Joy, his new love.  : )  It was nice to watch.  

Soon others got up to join in, like Shawn and Joanna..... 

. . . and Chris and Sara. . . . 

. . . .And then groups of people just got up and danced. . . . 

. . . and then a line dance started . . . and on  it went.  Wonderful stuff.  

After dinner it was time for dessert. 

And then the line dancing began.  

Lots of fun.....

Actions done to many of the dances.  

And lots of trying to figure out the dance moves. 

Here's a VERY expressive dance sequence.  

However, not ALL the team wanted to dance today.

Thanks to Harold and our line dance leaders for coming out tonight to help make this night special for our participants and mentors.    

After dancing it was time for worship once again.  The favourite song this year is "I wanna be your hands, I wanna be your feet".  Peppy and fun.  Here's the group interacting to that song.  

Here is Joanna doing the slides for the service.  Joanna has been with us all week helping with crafts and other things.  Thanks for being part of the team.  

Praise and worship time is always very interactive.  

Then Shellie went into her object lessons.  We used marbles today.....

and a wasp in a container.

And me under a trench coat trying to draw the world.  

I did better without the coat over my head.  

She also  used food colouring and bleach.  

We ended on a more serious note, placing things that keep us from God on the cross.  

Then the group cut a piece of cloth from a curtain to illustrate the separation of God being done away with because of Jesus.  

It was neat to watch everyone come up. 

Here is the end result of the cross.  A powerful message for all of us.  

The shards of cloth left on the ground.  A powerful message that Jesus is the way to God.  

After Worship time we entered into our final sport, movie and craft time.  The group that started with the masks were now going to paint them.  

Here's the movie group.  John was VERY happy to be in this group because he was FINALLY going to get to see the end of the movie "The Blind Side".  You see we never have enough time to finish a movie during this time and John wasn't happy about that.  I made him happy tonight.  

This brings us to the end of our busy, but GREAT day.  Lots went on, and LOTS of fun was had by all.   I hope you were able to experience just a bit of that in this blog entry.  Tomorrow we have our final day.  WOW has time gone fast.  It has been good, and I will miss these people when they are gone.  I'll blog our final day either tomorrow night, or Friday morning, depending on how I'm feeling.  Until then.....Blessings to you all.