At 2:30 PM, before the youth and leaders arrived, the host team met in the sanctuary to pray over Huron SERVE. We had a few nervous jitters (are we ready?) and prayed that God would give us peace. We also prayed that the youth and leaders who were on their way would arrive safely, and that SERVE might be a blessing to us all.
God answered our prayers by bringing the groups safely to us. A little later, the groups arrived, had their pictures take, registered and grabbed their goodie bags. After this they had time to get settled in their sleeping quarters before supper as well as acquaint themselves a little bit with our facilities.
Every year we do something fun for our group names and this year we used "red neck" names for our groups.
Supper was served and everyone ate with their small groups to give opportunity to meet and share a bit about ourselves.
After supper, the host team met with the leaders. We have a large group of leaders, and we connected well at our first meeting. We introduced ourselves, and shared a bit about our SERVE experience. The host team then shared a little bit about our SERVE site and what the leaders can expect.
We have a group of prayer warriors, who meet every evening before the service to pray over SERVE, and any prayer requests that come in. Tonight they took the opportunity to pray with Gil, our speaker for the week.
Mary Jane, our host team coordinator introduced the host team at the start of the worship service. We also went over the rules for the week with the youth.
The Praise Team then led us in worship, singing a number of songs before Gil came up to speak.
Gil started his message off with a paraphrase of the lost son. He shared that everyone is worthwhile and everyone belongs. We need to be in God's mercy. But who we are is what we do. He shared that there are only two ways we can change: either through trauma or discipline. We can form discipline either through proximity or intentional discipline. We need to want to be different, and be who God wants us to be. Yet we also need to see ourselves as God sees us.
Gil urged us to think beyond this week, and take what we do this week with us when SERVE is over and to let this change us.
After a few more songs from the Praise Team, we were dismissed to get together with our small groups for devotions. The youth had another snack and some free time before bedtime.
