In Attendance from CLC:
Adults:
Rev. Bob Holley
Judy Shuey - Youth Director
Matthew Shull
Youth:
Matthew Bigelow
Derick Sizemore
Kristin Sanders
Amy Bigelow
In Attendance from St. Peter's in Churchville:
Adults:
Rev. Paul Wolters
Youth:
Virginia Lamneck
Kate Lamneck
Megan Bottenfield
It was a wonderful event! The theme was Wildlife. The text that was used was from Daniel 6, The Story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. The planning group did an especially good job this year with their skits during Large Group. The theme was picked because 2 fellows named Daniel approached the VA Synod Director for Youth Ministries and asked if they could be on a planning group for Winter Celebration. They recruited another Daniel and Danielle. The Synod then looked through their files and found Laura Daniel. So all of the planning group members were named Daniel!
I started out in Small Group 3 in English Hall with 9th graders with Karla May as the leader. Karla warned me before we started that we may not work well together. I tried to brush that aside and to lead anyway. The small group on Friday night really bombed. Karla approached me on Saturday at breakfast to ask if I would like to co-lead with her husband Jeff and let Karla's sister Katie take my place. We did that, and the rest of the event was much better. The Holy Spirit moves in mysterious ways. The event was much better for all involved in the switch-arroo.
Saturday Morning, I switched to Small Group 2 (one room over) with Rev. Jeff May. We had 9th graders. It was a very lively and talkative group. It was sometime hard to keep them from talking all at once.
We talked a lot about the Lions in the 9th graders lives. We also posed an interesting question: "Have you been inoculated with the faith, or have you been infected with a full-blown case of faith?"
The skits that Paul and Chip did this time were: Wild Bill (Paul) and Wild Bob (Chip). They had a different stuffed animal each time and they had some jokes and trivia. The first animal was a Python snake. As they were doing the skit, Paul said to Chip, "What is that on the end of the snake? It looks like a price tag!" The group roared with laughter. Chip thought for a moment and said, "It is actually a bar-code. We like to tag all of the animals we catch to make sure that we don't catch the same one again later." Nice recovery Chip! Another memorable ad-lib was on Saturday afternoon when they had a seal. Chip was listing the different kinds of seals, "etc, etc, Driveway Seal, etc, etc." The group loved it!
An interesting change this time, was a change to the singing of Pharoah, Pharoah. The words to Pharoah, Pharoah appeared on the projection screen and everyone started cheering and standing up. Paul had a bible and said, "A reading from..." The crowd groaned, but sat down, and Paul read the beginning of the story from the bible. THEN we stood and sang Pharoah, Pharoah! It was wonderful to hear the story.
The highlight of the event for me was the Holy Communion service on Saturday night. I asked one of the leaders if they had enough people to administer the sacrament of Holy Communion. They said no they didn't have enough, and thanks for volunteering. Then they asked me to recruit 2 youth to assist. I recruited a girl from our church group and a girl from my Small Group. There was a small instructional session at 3 PM on Saturday. I was very surprised to see that there were going to be no ordained ministers administering the distribution. I was told that I would have the station on the front left and the 2 girls that I had recruited would assist me with the Common Cup and the Intinction Chalice. Wow! I was going to get to distribute the bread! When it came time for Holy Communion during the worship service, the lay people went forward and got the bread and wine. The left front already had a station there, so I moved to the center, directly in front of the altar. The highlight for me was giving Holy Communion to my Pastor, the Presiding Minister and the Bishop! "This is the body of Christ, given for you. Take and eat." After communion was over I gave communion to my 2 assistants and had one give the sacrament to me. What a moving experience!