Tuesday,
November 18, 2008 If I didn’t wake up, I’d still be sleeping!
We
have a great bunch of teens at our church. When there are five Sundays
in the month, they are responsible for the extra Sunday. They led the
first Sunday this month and we had a guest missionary speaker working
in Hawaii.
Along
with leading the singing, the kids did a play and a group reading about
open doors which fit in with the church outreach into our neighborhood
and the missionary presentation. Everything went well, except
forgetting to tell the congregation to sit down at the end. One of our
guys, who plays guitar, took the time to learn to play the ukulele
(brought from Hawaii)
and did special music on it. He said that took some time to learn
because it is so different from playing guitar, but he did an
outstanding job.
The weekend of the 8th got off to an early
start…on Thursday. Between our two small groups that day - one morning,
the other evening - we had to do some bulk buying for the teens’
Lock-In on Friday night and Friends’ Day Sunday. Dirt early Friday
morning, we went buying flowers and strawberries at the farmer’s
market, followed by breakfast at McDonalds - still a novelty here and
great cappuccino - stopping by church afterwards to make sure
everything was set for the youth activity. Then we headed home so I
review my lesson and Sue could make dessert for that night. This wasn’t
our first lock-in, but we should have remembered that teens don’t need
sugar to stay awake all night!
Kids
started arriving at eight that evening, and what a bunch of baggage
they brought – most of which they didn’t even use. There were
twenty-nine of us there by the time the doors were locked. The entrance
fee for each person was a kilo (2 lbs) of non-perishable food for the
church food cupboard to help the needy.
An
ice-breaker started the night and then they were divided into two teams
for competitions, followed by some singing and our Bible study.
The
games began following the study, and it didn’t seem to matter how much
they ran or fought for the ball or yelled, they didn’t seem to get
tired out.
The game they liked the best was blowing miniature
marshmallows at each other through blowguns – what a sticky mess! And
no one took my offer of ten bonus points for their team for anyone
who’d eat the marshmallows cleaned up off the floor.
By
eleven–thirty, they started a project of doing their names with
graffiti drawings on poster board and making personal pan pizzas. That
took quite a bit of time, and by three o’clock one group was playing
guitar and singing, and other groups playing table games or ping-pong,
but no one wanted to go to sleep.
After
settling down a pillow fight around five a.m., we decided it was time
to show a movie, Horton Hears a Who, and most everyone settled onto
their mattresses to watch. Some even managed to doze off a little
during.
By seven, breakfast was served followed by a morning
devotional time, awards for the teams, and finally, at eight, a groggy
group headed home to sleep it off.
Reading
it here, it all sounds quite easy, but believe me, it was exhausting,
and around four in the morning, I just wanted to sleep in my own bed!
We
got home by ten a.m., had a shower and went to bed, but not for long
since there was a lot to do with Sunday being the Friends’ Day service
and picnic.
Sunday
started early - around seven - so we could get out to the
chácara
(country house) to set things up for the big day, and there were
already people there working when we got there! We were glad for the
help. It was Friends’ Day. The weather was perfect for the event. Even
with a lot of regulars saying they wouldn’t be able to make it, we
still ended up with quite a crowd – 137 people with 35 invited friends.
Everyone’s
participation was great! In the “make a new friend” ice-breaker they
didn’t want to stop the game, and it was the same when the music
started. The message was communicated, followed by 9 people being
baptized!
As
we pastors divided up the “baptizees”, it was neat that I got to
baptize a daughter, Carol, and her parents, Benito and Luciana (who
have become our good friends), who were recently saved after coming out
to church when Carol invited them.
The lunch was excellent, with plenty of
salad, rice and meat so no one went away hungry. And, of course, it was a warm day so there
was ice cream for dessert. There
were some lines, but it gave folks time to get to make some more new
friends.After lunch, there was
time for the pool or soccer or just visiting.
Around
five in the afternoon, things were taken down and packed up. People
headed back to town commenting on what a great day it was and how glad
they had come.
The sky turned dark as stuff was unloaded at church,
and on our way home the rain started coming down in torrents! But by
then it didn’t matter. Summer rains have returned. Sunday, yesterday
and this evening we’ve had wind, heavy rain and a spectacular thunder
and lightning shows. For pictures of all this go to Bill's blog at
http://spoelhof-brazilnuts.blogspot.com/