SERVE 2015 - Day 3 - Worship and other things

Day 3.  

Welcome back.  

Our first full day with our Participants.  

We woke up at 7:30 again.  

Mornings sure come quickly.  : ) 

Pastor Kaleb walking us through morning devotions.  

Looks like Ryan (who came in at midnight last night) is still waking up.   

Waking up, is hard to do...(Imagine I'm singing a song at the moment).  

Hmmmm, Alex, that's an interesting face.  

A new way to eat a croissant (? spelling)  

Ah, others looking at my blog. 

Warms my heart.  : )  

The two love birds.

Kyle and Christina.   

Francine and Philippe creating warm fuzzies.   

Our final 3 participants arrived at midnight last night. 

Mentor (left): Becca

Participant (middle): Shawn

Mentor (right): Jonathan 

And here he is.  Shawn. 

He's been here for many years now.  

We love having him around. : )  

His brother Steven arrived last night too.  

Mentor (left): Tyler

Participant (middle):Steven

Mentor: Mackenzie 

And finally, Jordana. 

Mentor (left): Caralynn

Participant (middle): Jordana

Mentor (right): Ella

The rooms are fully stocked with people and so far, not looking too bad.   

Church was at 10 am this morning. 

Here's John greeting Megan. 

Megan has been a Mentor before, so John knows her. 

John was one of several greeters for morning church.   

Shawn, the social one, wanted to usher. 

He did a great job.  

Time for worship.   

Our praise team up front for church.  

The group grows and grows as the week moves on.  : )  

Pastor Ron leading worship.  A more casual Sunday today.   

I'm always amazed at how powerful music can be in our lives, and especially in the lives of our Participants.  

It's a joy to watch them praising God and being moved by the music.  

We commissioned our group during the morning service as well.   

A nice shot from the balcony.   

Worship time in church.   

 Speaker Mark bringing us the Word. 

Mark and I are doing some skits during the week.  Apparently I can't stay awake for his messages.  : )  

The wall of the church filled with the pictures of our group.   

Zach and Deshawn into the music of worship.  

Janika and Shawn sitting quietly for prayer.    

And then it was up for worship time. 

Shawn loves to play his guitar.   

Church is over and it's time for coffee and socializing. 

I see that Daniel is actually being nice to his sister, Rosy. 

Touching.   

A sea of blue.   

Philippe taking time to draw. 

He loves to draw.   

Group photo.  

Nice shot.   

A more goofy shot.   

We missed a couple of our team the other day in their t-shirts.  Here's Anne, one of our kitchen coordinators.   

Hmmmmm,  Mark always in the middle of things.   

Lisa and Tyler showing off their pipes.  I think Lisa is cheating.  : )  

Stephanie and Heather enjoying time before lunch.   

I'm really happy with Lisa's picture taking. 

She's saved me a TONNE of time, and her pictures are very good.  Good competition for my son Chris and Ailene and Joy who have taken pictures in the past.
But the one thing she has been missing are food shots. 
I kindly asked if she could take some, and she DID!

After Lunch it was time for small groups again. 
Shawn and Jonathan working through the booklet.  

Tyler and Mackenzie working through the material with Steven. 

Daniel and Benjamin enjoying small group time. 

Ryan and Samantha doing the same.  

Sarah, helping out with video.  

Joseph and Justin putting together something?  Not sure.  : )

Ah, it's a toolbox.  Makes sense.  
pretty fine work hey Zach? 
Nathaniel and Zach working hard together.  

Cute Tyler.  :) 

Francine and Kaitlyn putting the final touches on the toolbox. 

After small group time we travelled to OCS for another adventure with Ray's Reptiles (or is that Rey's...I honestly never remember).  

Many different animals this time. 
Here's a cute little snake.  

And Lisa was brave.  She doesn't like snakes, but she pet it anyway.  

Ella touching the lizard.  
Looks like a snake, but this guy has eyelids and ears.  
Zach enjoyed touching it too.  

Shawn petting the tortoise.  

And here's a snapping turtle.  
The difference....tortoise lives on land. 
Turtle in the water.   

Lizard. 
This guy was great with the animals, and with our participants and he had a great sense of humour too.

A miniature alligator. 

Not so smooth to the touch, eh John? 

Our last animal was a python. 
A relatively short one at that. 
Pastor Kaleb seems to like the python.  

Lysanne and Joshua? giving the python a massage.  : )

Seems like Stephanie is ok with the python. 

John wasn't so sure about touching it. 
Took him about 7 tries, and eventually Emily helped him overcome his fear.  Touching to watch actually. (pun intended)  

Alex...no fear.  : ) 

Neither for Francine.  

Or DeShawn.  

These all did it together. 
Mutual encouragement.  

A nice looking python if you ask me.  : ) 

It was neat to see the subtext for this time. 
Overcoming your fears.  As simple as fear of touching an animal.    

We could not get motorcycle rides this time, so we improvised because we had about 45 minutes of spare time. 
Annette and Bea and Janine came up with this great game. 
Line everyone up into two lines.  

hmmmm, this is out of order....
Lisa, you weren't paying attention to the instructions were you.  : ) 
This was at the end of the game, where you tossed a duck, or a pig, into the hula hoop.  Before that one person went down the line and skipped with each person. Then we followed that leader through some hula hoops on the ground.  

Then we held hands in a line....

....and you had to get the hula hoop from one end of the line to the other without breaking the chain. 
We ended with tossing the animal into the hoop. 
It was quite fun actually, and I once again saw the competitive spirit of Annette shine brightly.  : ) 

After OCS we went to various places for showers and then to the church for supper. 
Lasagna and salad. 
Lisa got a food picture. Yeah!  : )

I added this one...sorry.  : ) 

Our kitchen volunteer crew is outstanding. 
I can't say enough about their dedication and work ethic. 
The food is great and the atmosphere in the kitchen is wonderful.  Thanks to all for your hard work. 

At each meal time and evening, our nurses come and administer med's to our participants.  We are VERY thankful for them.  Here's Mary Jane going through all the many different medications.  They do a great job of keeping track. 

Worship time can be interactive too...

And enjoyable as Ella and Katrina demonstrate.  : )  

Everyone worships differently. 
That's the joy of it.  

Even Sarah and Janika get into the actions.  

After Supper it was worship time. 
Mark did a play, or reenactment of Daniel in the lion's den. 
Here are the bad people wanting to put Daniel away.  

Lisa was our Daniel. 
She was a hoot.  : ) 

John was the king, and here's the bad people telling the king to through Daniel to the lions.  

Daniel in the lion's den.  
A great skit.  

Is this supposed to be a selfie Janika and Lisa....yuck!  : ) 

Oh yes....Thomas is helping us out with video during our worship times.  Thanks for your help Thomas.  

After worship time it was craft time. 
As usual, we have quality crafts again this year. 
An eagle, which was started yesterday, is being completed today.  

There was also painting going on. 
Good job Benjamin.  

Meghan giving encouraging instruction to Jessica. 

Philippe is enjoying himself.  

It was hard work. 
Detailed work.  

Shannon that looks very nice.  
Brittany encouraging her to continue. 

Seems like Janika wanted to become a craft project of her own.  : )   You look great Janika.  

Kyle with his finished product. 
I'm quite impressed with how they all turned out.  

Isn't that just amazingly well done?  

The completed product. 
I wish I was doing this craft.  

After craft time it was snack time and then bed time for our Participants. They were pretty tired, so it wasn't hard to get them to bed....well, maybe for some, but we expect that. : ) 

At 9:30 pm we gathered in the youth room as mentors and shared the day's experienced.  Lots of laughter and working out issues.  I love those mentor times.  
I'm very proud of all our mentors. They are doing an amazing job again this year.  You should be proud of your sons/daughters.  They are stepping up to the challenge. 

Well, that brings us to the end of our day. 
Everyone is in bed, and I'm done this blog at 11:30 pm.  SWEET!!!  : ) 

I hope that you got a glimpse of our day. 

Feel free to stop by tomorrow night at 6:30 pm if you'd like for worship time.  We'd love to have you visit.  

Till tomorrow. 

Oh, and comments are welcome, as always.