SERVE - Day2 - Saturday - Participants Arrive

It's 11:30 pm.  Shellie, Rey, and I are preparing for tomorrow. The church is quiet.  Everyone is sleeping, finally.  It has been a good day.  Our participants arrived today and we have been getting to know each other well.  Below is a pictoral journal of our day.  Enjoy.  : ) 

Here is our secret agent friend that has been hanging around reading the newspaper.  He's ready to welcome our participants.  

Before we could do that, we had to have breakfast.  The food continues to be GREAT.  

Here's the group of mentors getting their energy for the morning time.  

Hey Joanna.  You look tired.  Sleep well?  

Here's some of the group reading my blog.  Fontana told me she actually didn't take those pictures, so I'm printing a retraction on that score  : ) .  

After breakfast we continued our mentor training.  Shellie lead the group through many different facets of issues pertaining to our participants.  

Here's the stage area, still being prepared.  Shellie's creative juices flow well and the stage area is starting to take shape as our secret agent headquarters.  

One exercise that Shellie had the mentors do was to brush one another's teeth as a way of dealing with uncomfortable issues that might come up during the week.  

Here are Rachel and Hannah enjoying the teeth brushing.  

Jacob and Megan.  

Esther and Ethan.  

Another exercise that Shellie did was to have the group write their first and last names doing different things.  You see the progressive results of their names.  All good stuff to go through to prepare our mentors for the week ahead.  

We also spent some time reviewing information so we could get to know our friends that are coming better.  

One of our nurses, Mary-Jane, went over medical stuff we needed to know as well.  I was off to pick up our first set of participants so I missed this section of our training time.  

Here is Grace preparing the registration tables for the arrival of our participants.  She too, is doing a GREAT job.  

Here are our first participants to arrive.  They hale from Winnipeg.  Kyle and Kayla.  There were excited to be coming to Ottawa for sure.  

Soon others were arriving and things began hoping once again.  I find this to be the beginning of  SERVE and I love the noise, activity, and meeting the families.  

As part of registration, each participant received a t-shirt and fedora and then they went down to their rooms to get settled in.  After that they had to have their silhouette traced on a wall and they were placed on our sanctuary wall with a code name.  

Here is Kyle with his silhouette completed.  

Here is the finished product.  I think it looks pretty cool.  

Below you will find pictures of our mentors and participants as they have been paired together.  

Here are Megan and Alexa settling into their room.  

Here I am taking some time to allow Tamara to take the time to visit with our participants arriving.  I just LOVE little babies, so it was a pleasure to take the time out and get to know Casey.  

She slept off and on for a time, but eventually just wanted to sit up and watch everything that was going on.  

Another thing participants had to do was to sign up for our evening options consisting of Sport, a Movie, or a Craft.  

Last year Sara and Hannah were partnered together.  This year they are again.  Here they are getting reacquainted.  

 Rachel is a returning Mentor and John is a first time participant. They hit it off well.  

No project like this succeeds without great food.  Many volunteers, in addition to Anne and Annet, help out each day in the kitchen.  Here are some of those volunteers hard a work.  

We have a place set aside where you can sit down and write "warm fuzzies" to one another.  It's a popular place, let me tell you.  

After all the activities were completed at registration, everyone settled down to just get to know each other.  Cards was one way to do that.  

More cards.  

Shellie is still smilin'.  A good thing!  

At 4 pm we began some group fun time.  We gathered in the sanctuary and everyone had to gather string and follow it down the church sanctuary.  At the end of the string was a bag full of gadgets.  

Hannah, well, she got all tangled up as Sara and her were gathering up the string. I helped untangle her string and they were soon on their way again.  

This proved to be no small task for many in the group.  I just can't imagine how much work it took Bea and Grace to thread all the thread through the pews.  

Shawn and Joanna are making headway and packing away alot of string.  

At the end of the string was the briefcase.  Here is Kyle B discovering what's inside.  

There were Handcuffs, a  magnifying glass, flashlight, and yes, even a gun.  Esther is now being held up by Tyler.  He's having LOTS of fun.  Esther?  I think she is too  : ) .  

Right after this everyone went into their small groups and learned their lesson for the day.  

Part of that involved making finger prints for their detective badges.  Here is Amy with a purple thumb. 

Here are some of the rooms ready to be slept in each evening.  They look neat now, but just wait a couple of days, and I'll show you how messy they can really get.  : )  

Someone was really thinking when they packed.  A rack to hold towels for drying.  They must have had to take a trailer along to hold all this person's stuff.  

More neat rooms....for now.  

Harold and Hank took some time today to take in the consolation soccer game online.  

As I was snapping pictures, this troupe pranced by with apple juice for dinner.  Always something going on.  

Everyone always has something to do when at the church, but at times, SOME of them can find time to sit around and chit chat.  I think Bea and Grace were doing all the work at this point.  

Before you knew it, it was time for supper.  Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, corn, gravy, and apple sauce.  It was AMAZING!!!

Oh, here's Esther sitting with all her friends.  Sorry, Esther, I couldn't resist.  

Fontana seemed to have issues with the finger print ink process.  I guess she wanted to do all her fingers, not just one.  Oh, Fontana.  

Here are the three amigos enjoying the GREAT food.  

A touching moment where Anne and Alex get reacquainted.  

After dinner it was time for a short group activity.  Our evening cake had gone missing, and it was the group's mission to find it back using different clues scattered around the church.  

The nice thing about this was that we got to eat the end result.  

At 6:30 every evening we have worship time and speaker time.  This year, you don't get into the sanctuary unless you have proper identification.  Officer Rey ensured we all had our proper papers.  

He also stamped our passports to ensure safe entrance into headquarters.  

Once inside, it was time for praise and worship.  Let's get rockin' everyone.  Shawn, and others, brought their instruments to play. They had a blast.  

Others, like Sara and John expressed their love for music in other ways. 

Natasha and company lead us in worship once again.  Great stuff.  Thanks for coming out once again.  

Here is Silene playing the piano for the group.  She was a mentor the first two years of SERVE, but couldn't do it this year.  However, she wanted to be involved somehow, so she is playing the piano for us.  Nice to have you around again Silene.  

Shellie took some time to share with us our first secret agent story.  She's a gifted speaker and I just can't imagine doing a SERVE without her.  

She showed us that a simple thing like a macaroni strainer can have another use.  A mind reader gadget.  Here it is reading Tamara's mind.  

It also read my mind, though apparently there wasn't much on my mind at the time.  : )  

Here's Shellie in her office trying to figure out clues to a secret message having to do with a tree, some fruit, a snake and something black.  Can you guess what those clues are trying to tell us?

Two people from the Gideon's came and handed out the "guide" for us to help us crack our codes.  

Now, as a bit of a tangent, you need to know that the last 5 or so pictures were not taken by yours truly.  No, in fact they were taken by none other than FONTANA.  You see, I can't do video and take pictures at the same time during the worship services, so, in past SERVE's,  I used to ask Janine to help me out.  She has since pretty much refused to do it, but Fontana is eager to.  

Now, as you know, I know, and you know, that Fontana likes to take, well, let's just say.....interesting pictures.  But when pushed to perform, she actually does OK.  Fontanna would like you to think that I've changed and had an epiphany moment in realizing that she actually can take good pictures.  In reality, I've known that all along, but she is so much fun to bug, and she does a good job of taking it well.  I know that having me trust her with this task is important, and   I just wanted you thank you for helping me out Fontana.  These pictures, and the many others that didn't make it onto the blog, were VERY good.  Keep it up during worship times because I do need you to capture the moments for all those who can't be here each day so I can tell them about it on the blog.   You really are a good photographer, who just needs more mentoring in the finer art of flash and focus.  These pictures are a great start.    : )  

Once the great worship and learning time was completed it was time for the three different options to take place. Here are some watching GET SMART episodes.  

Others of us played sports.  

While still others of us partook of a plaster mask making exercises.  Joanna you look MARVELOUS, but it doesn't look like Shawn is liking this activity too much yet.  

But I see that he eventually took a liking to it.  

Each evening we have a snack.  This year, once again, we were treated to my favourite snack of the week.  DEATH BY CHOCOLATE.   MMMMMMMMMM

It seems that instead of putting the whipped creame on the desserts, they opted to put it on my head.  

No  big deal. I could still blog with whipped creame on my head....and let me assure you, I got Shellie and Tamara, and Janine back GOOD!!!!  

So ends our second day of SERVE.  I opologize if there are some typo's in this entry, or suceeding one's but it's now 1:30 am and lack of sleep will have that happen at times.  I beg your indulgence, and grace.  

 Tomorrow we have our last two mentors join us and our group will be complete.  I hope this has given you a taste of what we experienced today. Tomorrow holds many great activities and surprises.  Stay tuned for more in the next blog entry.