Ottawa SERVE 2014 - Day 2 - Participants Arrive

Day 2

After an average night sleep for some, and an awesome sleep for others, it was 8 am and time to rise and shine. 

I couldn't find Joy, so I began to take some preliminary pictures of the breakfast crew. 

We have a group of 3 men who are in charge of making breakfast each morning.  Gerry is the head master.   

Bert is a great cook.  Apparently he made great muffins today, but I didn't get the chance to taste them because only 1/2 the batch was actually made.  The other 1/2 happened to be chocolate chip cookie mix, something Bert wasn't in the mood to make.   

Becca having her morning coffee and Megan trying to wake up.   

Caralynn and Carraugh and Alexa waking up. 

At least they are smiling.  

Joy took over taking the pictures today. 

She took some great ones today, and in total she took over 1200 pictures. WOW.

All good, but she had an absolute BLAST going through them and managed to get them down to 120 for this blog entry.  

I hope you enjoy watching them, as I try to tell today's story using them.  

Annette is our spiritual life coordinator again today.  

She opened the day with devotions, as she will do every day.   

Breakfast is served.  

MARK.  How ya doin?  

He is sleeping off site again, but spends the whole day with us.  

Cereal, toast, fruit, and apparently delicious muffins for breakfast.  See above for the reason why I didn't get any muffins.  : )  

Joy was miffed that she didn't get a muffin (as was I, as you know.  )  

Honey Nut Cheerios.  The cereal of champions.   

Some great food shots.  

Just remember that I DIDN'T take them.   : )  

Nice Sarah.  

And Niesje  

Lucy...have you woken up yet?   

Ah, the warm fuzzy table.  I think Mark's writing me one...no really, he is...... 

After breakfast it was time for more mentor time.  

We learned about our participants who were coming this afternoon.   

Nicolette and Lucy and Niesje (left to right) ready to go.  

Carraugh, Megan, Caralynn and Alexa.  (left to right)

All wonderful Mentors.   

Lisa and Adam....

A pensive, pondering pose.   : )  

Our rooms are slowly taking shape.  They are still pretty neat, but just you wait.   

I left a laptop out for the group to be able to read the blog. 

Adam took me up on the offer.   

Our t-shirts for this year.

I really liked the colour of the shirt this year.   

So, we didn't get pictures of certain mentors yesterday. 

Here's Ben, a repeat mentor.   

Joy, our photographer. 

You won't see her that often because she is the one behind the camera. 

You see SERVE from a different perspective when behind the camera or video camera.   

Annette Brinkman. - Spiritual Life.   

Oh, there's Joy again....Chris must have gotten hold of the camera again.   

Ah, this is the picture that Chris wanted on the blog. 

He did this in Peru as well. 

Seems he had to place the blog on a picture of him.   

Chris, Jonathan and Ben awaiting the arrival of participants.   

Everyone getting into the warm fuzzy mood.  

Interesting shot of Adam.  

 Lunch will soon be served. 

Ryan made this wonderful cup arrangement. 

We have so much hidden talent. 

Kaitlyn looking pensive too.  hmmm 

And then there's Lisa....

What exactly are you supposed to be doing?   

Lunch is served.   

Chili and soup and buns.   

Hey Ben.  

I see Joy is still getting good food shots, and you are playing right along. 

After lunch people got the final touches ready for the arrival of our Participants. 

They are supposed to come between 2 - 4 pm, but some arrived at 1:30 pm - while others came right at 4 pm. : )  

Mark is saying hello to Kyle, getting reacquainted.   

Deshawn all smiles again. He's glad to be returning.   

You are now going to meet our teams of Mentor/Participants. (All from left to right)

Here is Becca and Deshawn 

Braidon and Kyle 

Amy and Zachary 

An intermittent time as Mentors wait for their participants to arrive and register with the nurse and Joanna.   

Awe, a cute picture of Alexa and Nicolette.   

Becca and Deshawn setting up his sleeping quarters.   

hmmm, Hey Sarah.  : )  

Everything ok? : )  

As the Participants arrived, they received a bag containing all kinds of neat items, and they were to decorate the bag as well.   

As the participants arrive, we decided to offer the parents some coffee, juice and cookies. 

Some will have driven a long way to get here.   

Oh, Janine is on our planning team as well. 

She is also in charge of work sites.   

Old friends meeting up again. 

Kyle and John.   

John and Maddie came all the way from California. 

John has been here before, but this is Maddie's first time.  

More partners

Alexa and John and Janika.   

Melanie and Lisa 

Carolyn and Kaitlyn 

Caralynn and Ryan 

Lisa and Madeleine (Maddie) and Olivia 

Summer and Amy

Still waiting for their Participants to Arrive.  : )  

Carolyn decorating her bag.  

Nice job.  

 Lisa did a wonderful job too.  

As did Ryan.   

As Participants arrive, the church gets noisier and noisier. 

I love it.  : ) 

Lots of social time.   

Shawn arrived and greets Jessica.  

Completed bags left to dry.   

Chris and Steve 

Shawn and Ben 

People keep trickling in. 

For those who are new, the process of settling in can be a bit daunting, but our nurse, and Joanna and the mentors make the transition as smooth a possible.   

Jordana and Rachael 

Shawn getting his surprises out of the bag.  

Mark and John talking things up.   

Megan and Mitchell

Esther and Jessica (Carraugh is also a Mentor here).  

Attended a wedding, and will be back tonight.   

Sarah and Sara working on Sara's bag. 

Sara took a year off, but decided to return to SERVE. 

We are glad she's back.  

The rooms starting to fill up.  

Neat now...but wait a couple of days... : )  

Tyler and Adam 

Stephanie and Lucy 

Sarah and Sara....

Alex and Nicolette

Niesje and Phil 

Once everyone arrives, and they now have, we do our traditional group picture in our t-shirts.   

One serious, and one not so serious. : )  

Time for some group activities.   

Not sure what's going on here, but lots of interaction happening.  

Time for some Bingo.

Asking people to sign where the box applies to them.  

hmmm, who to ask what ? 

Maddie asking Olivia to sign something

Zachary trying to get Amy to sign a square.

Mitchell and Megan asking Joanna to fill in a square to get that illusive BINGO! 

Carolyn, what question do you want to ask?   

After the Bingo game, we went outside for some fun games. 

Here we raced two chariots

(resurrected from our VBS of years ago).   

The group was split into two and Mentors gave participants rides. The first group to get all their participants to the other side, won.  

A safe way to do the races..sitting down.  : )  

Alex had a blast being pulled.  

Maddie seems to be really relaxed while Olivia pulls her along.   

Lisa's having fun too.   

After the races it was time for water sports.   

Two pails.  One at either end of the park. 

One filled with water and sponges. 

The other empty.  

The object of the game is to soak the sponge with water.   

Then run to the other pail and empty the sponge of water.   

Hopefully you empty one pail and end up filling the other.   

Some ran, some walked.....

All had a good time.   

Supper was supposed to be next, but there was a minor glitch and we had to postpone for 1 hour, so we went into our small group time.  Here's Steve working through the first day's lesson.  

Summer and Amy already fast friends.   

Ben and Shawn in small group time.  

We interrupted small group time to have dinner. 

Meatloaf (delicious) and potatoes and corn and peas. 

Yummy.  Well worth the wait.   

Joy, this is a really great shot.  : ) 

Tyler, glad to be eating dinner.   

Dig in Stephanie 

Great conversations take place during supper time.   

After supper it was time for praise and worship. 

Once again, there was lots of group participation. : )  

I love the worship times each evening.  

A great picture of praising our God.   

Time for Mark to do what he does best..have a message which somehow seems to involve me.  

I got to be a grumpy bus driver today...with a stowaway passenger...That's Carolyn behind me there, but I didn't know she was behind me and she scared me really bad when she started talking behind me.  : ) 

Too funny. 

More drama time as Mark tells the story of the Wedding banquet.   

He's such a ham : ) 

I like that he's interactive with the whole crowd during his talks.  And the hat isn't that bad either.  : )

Sara and Mitchell listening intently to Mark. 

We finished off the evening with a final song... 

And then it was craft time.   

Seems Esther wanted to add to her hair tonight.  That's not the way to dye your hair BTW.  : )  

You could either make a yarn like drawing on wood with your initials... 

...or decorate a bird house.  Nice work Maddie. 

Great paint job Tyler. 

After craft time we had snack, and then everyone was off to bed. 

Mentors met for 1/2 hour to debrief about the day and then they too were off to bed.  

Lots of tired Participants and Mentors means we had a good day.  :) 

I was super proud of all our Mentors today.  

All did an awesome job.  

Thanks for your hard work.  

Hey, we end the evening with another picture of Joy....is that really you Joy?   

Great pictures today Joy, and you've only seen 10 % of them.  : ) 

It's time to post this blog and get some sleep. It's 12:15 am and 8 am comes quickly.  

Well, we really end the day with a picture that Chris really wanted me to put on the blog.  I didn't know my head was so round...and so bald.....

There you go Chris...I told you I'd put it up. 

Until tomorrow....where you will read about our commissioning service, motorcycle rides, Ray's reptiles and other such things.........