SERVE 2012 - Thursday and Friday - Mentors

Serve 2012 is upon us.  This is our 4th SERVE in 5 years  (did I get that right Janine  : ) ).  It's always a tonne of planning, but in the end, the pay off is worth it.  We are once again looking forward to hosting 15 participants with 18 Mentors and our planning team.  

Tomorrow you'll get to meet them all via pictures, but this blog entry is just going to introduce you to some of the preparation work that has gone on up to this point - being Friday evening  (well, actually Saturday morning thanks to a long and wonderful chat Annette and I had first). 

Our Kitchen crew, headed up by Anne and Annet, have been working hard this past week pre- cooking and shopping.  Here's Anne getting into her kitchen duties and getting a meal ready for us.  

Anne and Annet are a great team that work well together.   

They like to have fun as well.  Here Annet is helping keep Anne from getting meat all over her cloths.... 

Bea and Grace are heading up our decorating of the church and small group time (aka Mission Time).   

Harold (and Janine not seen here) are involved in getting our work sites up and running, and transportation.  Here's Harold getting all those schedules and driving schedules organized.   

Annette B is seen UNDER the ladder helping out Grace and Bea. Teamwork....awesome.   

Annette is our prayer coordinator.  She's also helping to ensure our warm fuzzy table is ready for people to give each other nice comments during the week.  

This is a more serious pose of her actually working.   

No matter how much work there is to be done, there's always time for a bit of a rest and some socializing.   

Some of the decorations that are taking shape for Shellie, who will be arriving from Winnipeg to speak to us throughout the week.  She does an AMAZING job BTW. 

The fellowship hall decorated with solar systems and other galaxy like stuff.   

Our Mentors are the back bone of our Special Needs SERVE experience.  Without them, we would not have SERVE here in Ottawa.  They give up a week of their life to invest 24/7 into the lives of our Participants.  Each year we host SERVE, I am super impressed by our Mentors.  Wonderful, caring, and crazy young people.  

We usually get a couple coming in from somewhere in Ontario the night before.  This year was no different.  Joy, Carissa, Kristen, and Ailene arrived on Thursday evening from Southern Ontario by VIA rail.  We moved them into the church and then I took them out to Dick's Dairy Dip next door for a bite to eat.  Getting to know them was easy peasy.....  : )  Wonderful fun loving people, and crazy as well, especially Ailene.  I'm going to have to watch out for her this week.  She's a sneaky one, but great on the violin I hear (no pun intended).  

After our meal I took them on a tour of downtown Ottawa, and then they settled down for the evening.    

Up for breakfast at 8:45  am  (yes, I was 15 minutes late) and out for a great breakfast.   It didn't even take them that long to order this time.  : )  

I love eating shots, and they are getting used to them already.  

 The french toast was amazing...or so I heard. 

After breakfast it was back to the church and time to put them to work.  We still had much planning to do.  Here's Ailene putting songs into the computer for our overheads.  She looks like she's enjoying herself.   

Concentrating here....are you sure you're not doing FB at the same time....hmmmmmm 

Bea sorting through pictures that will be used on Saturday.   

These pictures come out of sequence for some reason, but I'm too tired to move them, so I'll just talk about them now.  Here I am driving to our hiking destination in Gatineau Park.  I'm happy, as you can tell.   

On our way back home, (I had to take some from the music team back early so they could practice)  I gave Hannah my cell phone so she could text.  WHAT A MISTAKE!!!!  Here are some of the pictures that were taken, and are now on my IPhone as memories....

Crazy, crazy, crazy.   

Back to Planning.  Harold is explaining to Annet and Janine how to get to the hiking destination.   

We ate lunch before leaving.   

The food is going to be awesome once again, but I've heard we aren't going to be having chocolate this year........  : (  Is that true Anne?????

Driving to the hiking destination with my group.   

On the back roads of Gatineau Park.   

 So, our hike consisted of finding 3 treasures along the way using GPS's.  (Thanks to Harold and Bea, and Evert and Annet for planning the route out).   It was about 36 degrees outside, feeling more like 42.  We took lots of water along, but let me tell you, I was feeling it on this hike. VERY steep hills.  Rachael ended up falling, and scraping her knee and leg, but she's ok mom and dad.  

It took us 2.25 hours to complete the trail, and I think everyone was glad to be done and make it to the beach for a swim.  Lots of great bonding time was done, however, which was the goal of the hike.  

I was reminded as we walked how this grueling time was also going to mimic our week on SERVE.  Lots of ups and downs will be experience this week.  We encouraged one another as we plogged onward and upward, and we will be encouraging one another this week as times are sometimes tough.  

All in all a good endurance test for us.  We made it through, and we will make it through this week.    

We were the first group done, and here they are taking a short breather before heading into the water. Below are some of the others as they came to the end of the trail.  

 Fayth and Joanna arriving back safely.

  

Joy, joyful to be getting to go swimming now.   

Hannah thinking about getting BACK to church ASAP to get practicing.   

Sarah not wanting to pose for the camera. 

This is the trail we took.  The green line in a loop.  It's longer than it looks, that's for sure.  

Ailene and Niesje ready for a swim. SMILE Ailene.   

The group needing to return early...oh, sorry, Hannah, didn't mean to take your picture...really.  

Others relaxing in the water as we leave.   

Getting back to the church I found our good friend and crazy person, Shellie, had arrived.  Janine and Shellie spent hours getting caught up on things.  It has been two years for them after all.   

Each year we solicit volunteers to help in the kitchen.  They do the quiet, important work of feeding us all and doing dishes.  To start off, it was daughter-in-law and.... 

Son.  They did a GREAT job.   

As supper was being prepared, the music team swung into action and began practicing.  

Hannah is leading the group, and they sounded pretty good for not having practiced together yet.  

It was soon time for supper.  Yummy.  We all enjoyed a good meal after feeling a bit tired from the hike.  

Here we are together.  

After supper some took some time to get to know each other better.  Awesome.  

We soon moved down to the youth room and spent some time learning about our small group time, introducing the team to the mentors, and letting all our mentors get to know each other better by having them pair up with a partner and introduce them to us via questions.  

It was a hoot and we learned all kinds of things.  I learned that girls "Sparkle" at least once a day.....you can ask Ailene what that's supposed to mean.  : ) 

After our group time, it was time for me to go home and take a shower  (I didn't get a chance to swim) and pack  (hadn't done that either) and then high tail it back to the church.  I caught up on some email, and  was privileged to hear Ailene and Fayth play wonderful worship music together.  

Then I sat down for a bit of a chat with Annet, and now am finally concluding the first blog post for Youth Unlimited's Special Needs SERVE Ottawa 2012.  

It's been a long day, but a very good day.  We have been blessed with air conditioning, and a great group of volunteers.  

Saturday begins with breakfast, more training, learning about our participants, setting up rooms, meeting our participants, and let the fun begin........talk to you soon........