Sunday, July 17, 2011

Winnipeg SERVE Day 6 - Participants arrive.


Day 6.  Saturday.  WOW, we've been away from home for a while already, but SERVE is just about to begin.  Today is mentor training day and time to meet our participants.  Lots of planning now comes to fruition.  

But first we have to wake up.  Here you see Joanna and Amber having their morning smile.  Joanna's back isn't doing too well, thanks to the amazing race, but hopefully things will get better soon.   




Shellie actually got a good night's sleep last night, which is unusual for SERVE's.  Glad to hear that you are feeling chipper and perky.  


 Breakfast was served.  Eggs and toast, etc.  A group of older men are coming in to cook every morning for us.  They started out by cleaning up the coffee dishes on Monday mornings, and then breakfast and a Bible study.   They wanted to be a blessing to this SERVE and we thank them for this.  


The planning team having one of their sessions to ensure everything is going according to plan. 

The mentors chatting things up as they enjoy the good food.  

 Well, it seems that not ALL the mentors were happy this morning...what's with the grumpy face Jacob.  Smile!  : ) 

Rosy's perky smile will brighten up anyone's day.  

Lots of eggs left over, but they were good.  


I scooted away to take a shower and run a couple of errands.  Others took the camera and took pictures.  Here's Amber getting in some reading time, and not liking the interruption, I don't think.  


Some of the gang relaxing and stretching.   



Reading the blog, I think?? 


Me writing the blog, and checking emails, etc. I'll be spending lots of time on these comfortable couches.   


Here's what it looks like from my seat as I blog away.   


Rosy tried to do some sort of gymnastic move and almost sprained her ankle.  Stick to diving Rosy....it's less dangerous for you.  


Father and son....boy do I have a lot of crows feet....must be from all that smiling over the years..... 


Seems stretching is the thing to be doing in this group.  


Leah is feeling fine once again.....yahoo!!!!! 


On the theme of stretching, it seems that Bonita taught our group a neat little trick..... 


This doesn't look comfortable at all, and smelling your feet at that...interesting to say the least.... 


No matter which foot you use.  : ) 


Mentor training time.   


Kitchen crew getting lunch ready.  They seemed to be having lots of fun as they prepared our meals for us.  Thanks for all your love and care as you feed us this week.   


Hannah being....Hannah!   


Lunch is served.   


We had corn and scalloped potatoes and sausages - oh, and salad.  It was very good.  


After lunch and a bit of free time it was time for our participants to arrive.  During lunch Shellie realized that she might have forgotten to tell someone to tell me the time I was supposed to pick up Jovita. Seems she arrived already and probably was waiting at the airport.  Bonita, Fayth and I scurried out there and we found her relaxed and sleeping on a chair.  We took her back to the church, and here she is checking in and meeting everyone.  


Some in the group were having air matress issues, so I went out and got some patches to see if this would solve the leaking problem.   


Kayla arrived and Hannah and her are setting up her room.   


Here's getting her room set up.   


Annette came back from Shellie's house and moved on to Hank and Carol's house.  Seems she and Kyle had a wonderful time together yesterday.  


The welcome sign for this year's SERVE  

Kayla doesn't like to be in pictures, but I managed to sneak this one by her.....she laughed.    

We have two Kyle's again at SERVE.  Here is Kyle #2.  : )  



It took a while for Leah's participant, Amy to arrive, so she caught up on some reading.   


Chris and Kyle are working on something together.   

Megan and Kim are checking out the map.  


Old buddies, Kyle and John get reacquainted.  


The room slowly get set up.  This is a huge air mattress.  I think I'm jealous.  : )  


The girls having some fun time in their room.   

There were some inside sports that happened during the time that the participants arrived.  Here's Jovita playing Frisbee.    

Kyle and Chris were paired up this year.  


Our last paricipant, Amy, finally showed up. She just brightens up my day and it was wonderful to see her again.  She hasn't stopped talking since she's been here.  : )  


If  you have been following last year's SERVE you will know that Amy is not the lightest packer in the world.  We have been known to take 1 hour with a couple of people just to get her packed up and ready for home again.  Well, this time, Amy arrived to a SERVE by plane and she took just one suitcase.  I was amazed, and proud of her.  I think it took a couple of tries to get all her stuff to fit, and I think she had to let some stuff stay home.  She seemed good with it, which was great to see. 


Taking time to do some artwork and get acquainted with each other.   

Here's a game of sit down volleyball. They had a hoot.  

They just used a beachball, but it didn't matter.   

John came with his mom.  He brought along his drum for our praise times.  It was a delicate packing job, but the drum was not damaged on the plane.  


 
The ladies are now preparing dinner for us.  The work never stops.  

At 4 PM it was small group time.   

 Each group has a leader and they go through the material that has been prepared for them.  

John and Rosy are getting into this.  

Amy and Leah working through things.  This is Leah's first SERVE, and Amy's 3rd, I think.  Both are doing very well.  

Amber and Kayla getting things done.   

The theme was on peace today, hence the peace symbols from everyone.  

At the end of the small group time, everyone had to find Sara and receive something for their passports.   

Here they are receiving a Manitoba pin, I think.   

Then it was time for dinner, with devotions from Hank before hand.  

Subs for supper.   

Everyone lines up and we dig in.   

Amy getting reacquainted with Shellie.  Amy adores Shellie. I don't think Amy took a breath during dinner she talked so much and so fast.  : )   


Ah, I finally got that food shot that I try to get each year from Joanna.   

John hamming it up as usual.   

If you expand this picture you will notice that Ken and Chris have the same facial expression, only reversed.....interesting..... 

These pictures should actually be before supper.  There were some outdoor group games that happened.  Bocci ball....  

 ...and Frisbee toss.  It was HOT outside.  33 celcius plus humidity.  We didn't stay out long.  

After supper it was time for our first worship time.  We have three worship leaders with us this year.  

Shellie got the group pumped by having them do some exercises before entering the sanctuary.  They then had to run in excited...and they were.  


Our group began to get into the worship.   




John playing his drum for worship time.  


Kyle playing his guitar too.   

Jovita loves to sing with the group as well.   


After worship, Shellie was on.  I'm always amazed at the talent of Shellie.  I never think she's going to pull off her talks, and then she gets into her groove and does amazing.   

The theme of this week is the Amazing Race and Shellie did amazingly in getting our attention.  She needed to get a team together for her race or she would be disqualified.  


She got everyone involved.  



She sent everyone to get their hats that said "one" on them because we are one team.  Here are Hannah and Kayla coming back from that and Hannah giving me a wicked glance for doing it.  


Everyone is now saying their pledge to become part of the group.   


Here are Amy and Shellie getting a clue to continue the race. 


Here are a group trying to make a tower out of marshmallows and spaghetti noodles.  




Others are enjoying the show.  




Almost finished this portion of the race and then it will be time to close things out.  


After worship time it was craft time.....



...or movie time....


or time to write warm fuzzies to people. 


or play games.  


So that brings us to the end of our day.  Below are some thoughts from Fayth as she experienced her day, and then some thoughts from Jacob will follow.  





Fayth: Hi everybody! Today, as Ron has mentioned, was the day that we had mentor orientation as well as the participants arriving. It was a full day! The mentor meeting was informative once again, and a good refresher on what our responsibilities are and just things that we need to know. We had lunch just as Shellie remembered we had to go pick up a Jovita! I went along because she is my partner. This was the first time I had met her. A lot of participants here this year were at SERVE last year, so when I found out I was paired up with someone I hadn't met, anxieties set in! Thankfully, the majority of these concerns faded away after getting to know Jovita. I have known her for only a few hours at this point, but she is a beautiful person, inside and out, and I look forward to becoming better friends with her throughout the week. 


Jacob: Hello everyone! I have had a great time at SERVE so far, and I am really looking forward to both re-experiencing the things that I did last year, and doing new things and meeting new people. As you may have noticed, the people involved in SERVE are called mentors and participants. The labels imply that one is teaching or guiding the other. I, however, have noticed that this is not the case at all. I find myself again and again learning just as much, or more, from my participant than he is learning from me. Even though this work may be stressful or tiring sometimes, I am often reminded of why God calls me here, and that I, too, am learning on this trip.
P.S. Hi Mom, Dad, and Jonathan, hope you are doing fine. Consider this my email to you all, as I am too tired to write any more tonight.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope you have a great week! Sorry i'm not there :( I hope you guys have serve again in Ottawa in 2012!

Anonymous said...

I miss you mom, hannah and i guess ben too. hav fun!
-Samantha brinkman