Thursday, July 11, 2013

SERVE 2013 - Day 6 - Fancy dinner and Talent show.


SERVE 2013 - Day 6
Wednesday
Fancy Dinner and Talent Show

Greetings once again all. 
It's 11:45 pm. 
Yep, a late night tonight, but Wednesdays are always that way at SERVE. 
Ran about 1 hour behind schedule but all is good because it was a VERY good day. 

I'll apologize now if you read mistakes, because I'm beyond tired, and my editor is too, so between us we should catch about 50 % of my mistakes.  : ) 

I know that the 200 of you who are reading this blog every day find it important, so hopefully you can look past the grammatical errors.  : ) If not...stop reading now! : )  


 Morning came at 8 am once again. Here's Niesje being rudely awakened by me.  Ah, the simple pleasures of life.  


 Each evening we go over our highs and lows of the day.  Apparently my taking Chris' picture each morning is a low....go figure.  : ) 



 Getting our cups of coffee and juice to get the eyes moving after another night of varied sleep.  



 After breakfast it was off to work sites again.  This crew is waiting at "The Mission" to get started with lunch preparations. 


 Jessica #1 is suited up and ready to go.  


 Oh, so is Jessica #2.  


 Sarah helping to clean up a kitchen at Jericho Road maybe?  


 John with his dance partner.  : )






Jordana working hard....though I don't know if she enjoyed working each day.  : )


Lucy at the food bank.  


Ryan helping sort cereal.  



 Justin working at RCHS cleaning lockers.  I wonder if it was the one he used last year.  : ) 


 Ben at the BFM store.  That flower arrangement really suits you, Ben.  



 Sarah and Jordana after working.  Time to relax.  


 Alex getting ready to see what his warm fuzzy gift is going to be.  


 Hmmmm, not really sure what this is...maybe something to do with the talent show?  I think so.  


 John received the perfect gift.  
Love it. !! : ) 


 Alex and Deshawn going over things for tonight's talent show.  Many of our participants were really excited about it.



 Ryan loves to read, and we had lots of newspapers around for him to catch up on the news while Rachel and Fayth catch up on other things.  


 Lunch time.  
I missed lunch. 
Had to bring back the BBQ's.  



 Oh, are you both going there this September?  Or did you find them somewhere?  
I'll let my editor answer this question.  
*We are actually both not going to Calvin this September but we did apply/visit the school and they LOVE free advertising... see? It's working!*



 Annet and Anne work hard during SERVE.  
When they spend the entire day here, which happens once or twice, they take a bit of time in the afternoon to relax.  Each person relaxed in their own way, and for these two, it's 1/2 glass of wine and a snooze.  
Well deserved.  


 Both Anne and Annet have done a marvelous job organizing the kitchen with all their volunteers.  
Thanks for all your hard work.  
I'll raise a glass to you both tomorrow.  : )


 So, the rooms in the church are getting pretty rank. :).   Can't even see the floor.  It sure will be fun cleaning up tomorrow. 




 Megan's back...and so is her face.  


 After lunch it was time for small group and then showers, and then the guys went to Mary-Jane's to change and play with Nerf guns.  The girls went to the church to be pampered.  Here's Joy relaxing while her hair is done.  What a life..... : ) 



Colton relaxing....again.  : )  


 Mark all fancied up.  I wonder what he's thinking about.....a very active and creative mind behind those glasses.  


 Carissa and Becca.  Hey, where'd the glasses go Becca?   You both look very nice.  


 Niesje and Deshawn.  It's almost time for dinner.  



 Before dinner, we had the traditional group shot with everyone looking so nice.  



Mark, you can get off the railing now...the picture is finished....hmmm


Jonathan...what are you doing with your chest? Strange boy......




Father / Daughter picture.  I think I'm even smiling.  Ailene did a good job of trying to get me to smile. 




 Time for dinner.  
Salad to start with, then meat, potatoes and veggies, applesauce.  
All of it delicious.  Tyler enjoyed the meal.  




Harold (the other guy) was supposed to come and play his guitar and harmonica for us, but he ended up being delayed, so Ailene graced us once again with her violin.  She's very talented.  


 Harold joined us eventually, and got the place rocking with his vintage songs.  Zachary loved them.  


 Many others soon joined in the dancing.  



 Oh, a side bar....dessert...DELICIOUS!!!!!


 Thanks for sharing your talent with us, Harold.  


 Zachary danced for pretty much every song.  


 Can't go a day without a face from Jonathan.  He looks constipated if you ask me.....yes, I'm tired..... 
: ) 



 Thanking our amazing kitchen crew.  




 And then it was time for our Talent Show. 
Ben and Becca and Joy were our MC's for the evening.  Ben told lots of jokes...a couple of them were even funny.  



 Deshawn singing.  



 I think this was a Justin B. song. 


 John danced to a great song.  


 Many of us think he's one of the best dancers we've seen in a long time.  
*So true!*


 Alex played his guitar and sang for us.  



 Kyle put on a great show for us.  


 He's working the crowd.  : )  



 Zachary fighting the forces of evil.   


 Here's Jessica doing leg farts....
Yes, you read that right.  Chris tried doing an armpit fart, but they don't work well when you have sweaty pits.  


 I think Jessica had sweaty leg pits.  But it was entertaining.  



 Near the end of the show my name was pulled out of a hat (all acts were put in a hat instead of arranged particular order and someone picked one out).  
Apparently the three MC's, though at different times, came up with this really funny idea to have me eat a banana to the beat of a song.  
WHY NOT?! 
So, here I am beginning to do just that. 
I had a lot of fun doing it, but I honestly don't remember much of it because I'm so tired. 
Chris will hopefully be able to put the clip up on Youtube tonight or tomorrow with a link for you (and me) to watch.  I made their day. 




 John and the girls singing another song.  



 Shawn did a great job of playing and singing.  
It was neat to watch each person use their talents to entertain us.  Thanks for all who were brave enough to share with us.  

 And then it was time for worship once again.  
The place was rockin'. 


 After worship, Mark and I hammed it up again, and then things got serious.  
Mark asked us if we had any questions that we might want to ask God. 
We took a bit of time to write them down and then place them into a box.  That box was then laid at the foot of a cross symbolizing us laying our burdens on Jesus shoulders, not ours. 
There were some pretty profound and deep questions asked this evening.  

We ended the evening with "Written in the Word;" a song that starts slow,and gets progressively fast and faster. 
It was awesome. 



After worship it was time for another craft or ball hockey.  
I was running back and forth to a certain store to try to get pictures for tomorrow's craft.  The machines were not cooperating, and being tired, I had some words for the machine. 
It didn't help...  : ) 
One last try tomorrow morning. 



 Our photographers for the week. 
A huge thanks goes out to Ailene and Chris for all their work.  We will have great memories for years to come thanks to their attention to detail.  


 Leah, a past mentor, joined us for the evening.  
Nice to see you again, Leah.  


Chris doesn't always treat his photography buddy nice.  Slapping her with his tie.  



A nice final shot of the two amigo's. 

After our game and craft time, it was snack time and then off to bed for our participants. 
Our mentor meeting time got started at about 10 pm. 
I was VERY tired, and might have even been a bit grumpy.  : ) I warned everyone first. 
We spent our time together sharing highs and lows, and also sharing something unique we have observed about our participants.  
Always a neat experience. 

Some mentors are still up sharing the last night of SERVE together.  Soon everyone will be off to bed, including me.  

And so ends the last full day of Ottawa's SERVE 2013. 

 Tomorrow it's time to pack up, have worship, and our final small group time with the parents who can make it. 
It will be sad to see everyone leave, but I do need some more sleep.  :) 
Tomorrow you will get the chance to hear some thoughts from our mentors so be sure to come back for the last entry of SERVE 2013.  Should be up by 10 pm tomorrow night. 

Until then....sleep well.  : ) 

Oh and here's the wonderful clip of me eating a banana to the sound of music. 

I call it "Ron's Bananagram"  : ) 




3 comments:

John's Going To SERVE! said...

thanks! t'was a GREAT evening...hard to believe SERVE will end today... what a blessing you have all been to so many!

Anonymous said...

"Ron's Bananagram" was HILARIOUS!!!!!

Anonymous said...

This was almost worth the price of admission! I think Zack's destroying the evil forces gave me the biggest laugh!
Joe