Saturday, July 2nd

Saturday was the first work day for the groups.  It was hot and humid, with the possibility of rain at any time, although that held off until early evening.  They worked hard at various sites, like community gardens, soup kitchens and food banks, as well as cleaning homes for those incapable of doing so themselves. 

A couple teams worked at the Garden of Hope, which is growing fresh vegetables for the local food banks and soup kitchens.
They picked rocks and weeded.

 

 Another team removed a deck that was damaged by winter storms for a family struggling with long term health issues.

 

Another group spent time at the Salvation Army painting the front room giving it a fresh new look.

Most teams were finished well ahead of schedule and managed to find a beach or pool to cool down at, before coming home to the church for free time and showers at the recreation centre. 

Mark (our speaker) even convinced some of the kids to play his favourite game, Bocce ball.

They also had time to check out their mailboxes and read messages from their friends and prayer partners as well as send messages to each other.

Just before supper a thunderstorm pulled through and displayed God's majesty and glory, providing some well deserved relief from the heat and humidity.  God's promise shone through at the end of it all with a beautiful rainbow.  A large portion of the host team and the praise team is camped out on the church grounds in trailers.

Tonight Mark spoke on peace breakers, using the main SERVE text for the week (as found on the home page).  Mark had the youth share some peace breakers on a poster with an assortment of newspaper clippings.  He reminded us that the ultimate peace breaker was Christ's death on the cross and related Christ own struggle in the garden of Gethsemane.

'The Upside of Maybe' had everyone up on their feet and dancing.

They closed off the night with small group devotions.