When you leave things lying around you receive some sort of punishment. This group had to do a minute to win it where they were given a popsicle stick they had to place in their mouth and try to balance five dice on it. Mary Jane had no problems with this and in no time she had all five dice balanced. Way to go Mary Jane!
They spent their free day in Grand Bend on the beach or on the "strip" that has all sorts of touristy shops.
It's tough when you're buried in the sand and lose your hat.
It's no better when your friend comes by to 'help'.
A bunch of people started a game of beach volleyball.
And some tossed a football around.
And time was spent lounging on the beach relaxing. A few members of the host team stayed by the beach umbrellas where the participants could drop off their stuff and kept an eye on it.
When we got back to the church we enjoyed a BBQ picnic out in the lawn under the shade of the trees.
In the evening we once again had a time of Praise and Worship. On Thursday night Gil started by encouraging one person to clap, and most of the crowd followed along. Later he asked us who did not conform. He then shared the story of the woman who surrendered fully to Jesus by anointing Him with perfume.
The sanctuary was rearranged so that we would all be facing each other including the speaker and the praise band, creating an inclusive community. Christ was at the center of the room represented by the bread and the juice of the communion elements. Gil shared that we needed to look through Christ to his body sitting at the other side, his people. God will do what He wants in this space, and we need to celebrate that He is here. He reminded the youth that they are not the Christians of tomorrow they are the Christians of today. |The candles, in the shape of the cross contribute our light as we are called to "shine like the stars".
The youth were asked to come forward and share their stories.
Many youth came up and shared.
It was an emotional night and they were so supportive of each other. Love filled the room.
Tonight's message was on "knowing what God's good and pleasing will is". Gil described God's will as a current, you just need to jump in and join it; the size of God's will is not small. He shared a story of a woman in Rwanda whose entire family was killed. This woman continued to pray the stations of the cross on her rosary. For years she had trouble saying "forgive them for they know not what they are doing" and the "forgive us as we forgive others" from the Lord's prayer. She did not give up on her rosary and after many years she finally was able to work through her grief and share those words with true forgiveness. As she speaks to groups she says that "because He did, I did, and if I can, you must". We need to learn to forgive! Bitterness and hurt becomes like a cancer taking over until you worship it instead and you die a little. God calls us to be stewards of our planet. That means we need to reconcile us to ourselves; we beat ourselves up the most. We become more like Christ the more we focus on Christ. Devotions are anything that encourages us to devote ourselves to Him and know God better. And when we find Christ we find the person we were always meant to be.
All the participants were then given a cross by their small group leader and as a small group they prayed a blessing over each other.
We then shared communion; The bread and wine are passed around and we repeated the blessing "The body of Christ broken for you" and "The blood of Christ poured out for you" to the person beside us. As the bread was passed along you could break of a piece of the bread.
The juice was then passed along and you could dip the bread in the juice and partake of the elements.
We then stood in a circle, held hands and prayed. It was a very long service (7:30- 10:45) but it was an moving, blessed and Spirit filled service.
They met with their small groups to talk, debrief and settle down before they were given a quick snack before bed time.
