Mini-Golfing

Hole in One!

On June 12th, about a dozen excited miniature golfers met at Cataumet Crossing in North Falmouth for a round of 18 holes, ice cream and fellowship. Youth were divided into teams and played through the course that was riddled with rock traps, water hazards, hills and light houses. But during the afternoon, very little attention was paid to the score. Youth were challenged to pay attention to their teammates and nominate those that were encouraging and had the most positive attitudes. They were also allowed to nominate their friends for performing trick shots and sinking long putts. After golf and a few rounds in the batting cage, we enjoyed some ice cream and took nominations for the awards. It was quite impressive to hear about how supportive our youth are of each other, and we found out one of our youth even scored a hole in one! A big thank you goes out to Anthony Watkins, Melissa Horton and Lynn O’Brien for chaperoning. Henry Brown helped chaperon too, ask him how many times he had to fish his ball out of the water hazards! Click here for more pictures.

15-Hour Famine

We Fasted for 15 Hours!

We asked our youth to give us their, "I am sleepy and hungry" face...

In an effort to raise money and awareness for fighting world hunger, our Youth Group participated in World Vision's Famine Event. Seven hearty youth fasted for 15 hours and played games to learn about issues surrounding world hunger. Whether it was learning about literacy in impoverished countries, or how access to clean water can drastically change someone's life, our youth approached each challenge with limitless energy, despite only being fueled by water and juice.

Youth gather to learn about their new identity.

Each youth was given a new identity for the evening. They took a new name and learned about a life much different then their own. Some of them were even given disabilities, like limited use of a limb or eye, etc that they had to deal with during the challenges. 

Our challenges were a far cry from the real challenges that kids around the world face, But each of our challenges came with a short lesson and small group discussion about bigger and more serious issues than a water relay or modified game of tag.

"Clinic Crisis" challenged youth to learn about
diseases, causes, symptoms and prevention methods.

Our youth were encouraged to think deeply about world hunger and ways that they can make a difference. We focused on the story of David and Goliath, a story about a youth taking on a great big problem. Each of our youth spent about 20 minutes in the middle of the night, sitting in the Chapel in prayer and meditation. World Hunger is a big problem, but our youth are inspired to act. They even cleaned all the pews in the sanctuary in hopes of soliciting donations from the congregation. World Vision is working throughout the world to provide clean water, education, food, and most importantly, hope to people that need it.

Look for our youth in their blue t-shirts!

You will see our famine participants wearing their blue shirts that they made during the Famine. They will be collecting money during the month of June for World Vision. 

You can donate then, or click here to donate online. 

Also, you should talk to the Roths, Emily and Anthony about their experience helping out and fasting alongside the youth. Thank you! Thanks to Gary Bernhardt for leading our Breaking the Fast Communion Service and to the Briggs for cooking us a giant pancake breakfast!

New Look!

Pavement Project Complete

You may notice that the area around the Youth Room / Bike Lab looks a little different. The new pavement is due, in part, to a $1,500 grant we received from the United Methodist Foundation of New England. The Foundation seeks to foster new initiatives in United Methodist Churches that promote faithful stewardship by a variety of methods, including addressing human needs through mission and ministry. The Foundation deemed our Falmouth Bike Lab Ministry one such program. The new pavement looks great and makes working on bikes a lot easier! A special thanks goes to the trustees and Pastor Rebecca for making this happen.

Before...

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony...

After

Bowling

Glow Bowling!

Perhaps the only thing more fun than hurling a ball down a wooden lane and watching it collide with pins is to do that with disco lights, music and a laser light show going on at the same time! Last Friday, the Youth Group met at Ryan Family Amusement for an evening of glow bowling. In addition to the bowling and dancing, we feasted on pizza, popcorn, veggies and fruit. Although none of us were able to break 100, we had quite a few of the youth come close, scoring in the high 90's! Thanks to all the staff at Ryan Family Amusement for putting on a great show, and a special thanks to Bonnie and Laura for chaperoning the event! 

Enjoy the video bellow and click here for more photos.

Easter Egg Hunt

Happy Easter!

Our annual Easter Egg Hunt was a great success thanks to all the Youth Group members and their tireless efforts to stuff and hid over 1,600 eggs. The party started last Sunday with our Easter Egg Stuffing party. Youth spent two intense hours stuffing candy into small plastic eggs and eating pizza. It was a lot of fun, and we shattered our record of 1,200 that was set last year. Who knows how many we will stuff next year!

By the time Saturday rolled around, everyone was ready to open those eggs back up and get some candy! Our Youth Group showed up bright and early to hid all the eggs in three different sections for the three different age groups that would be hunting them. It took about an hour to get all those eggs hid!

But before the egg hunt even began, we all enjoyed playing some games together and doing some crafts. We even had resurrection rolls that the kids were able to prepare. There was an egg obstacle course, egg memory match, a guess-what's-in-the-egg game, and pin the tail on the Easter Bunny. Finally, it was time for the main event... Egg Hunting! Over 40 kids were there to find all those eggs in about ten minutes. Thanks to everyone who helped out and Happy Easter Season!

Click Here for More Photos

Laser Tag

Tag! You've Been Zapped with a Laser Beam!

After a very fun and spiritually meaningful Winter Retreat, the youth (and Mr. Tags) needed to spend some time shooting each other with laser beams. So last Friday we traveled to Hyannis to do just that. Whether we were vampires vs. mortals, blue vs. yellow, or engaged in a free-for-all battle, every game was fun and exciting. We played for over four hours, ate seven large pizzas and destroyed more than a few grocery bags full of snacks! Who knew laser beams could get you to work up such an appetite. Thank you to all our chaperons and drivers that made it possible.

Winter Retreat 2015

Love Your Neighbor

We are back! Our Winter Retreat was a lot of fun and we spent the weekend learning a lot about how to love our neighbors. We went up to camp on Friday and by the time we got to Camp Calumet in Ossippee, NH, we were ready to run around! And we got the chance to do just that with an indoor snowball fight. We joined youth groups from around New England and everyone had to write down two interesting facts about themselves. Once everyone did this, we crinkled our paper into paper snowballs and began the battle. Our fearless program director Adam told us to stop and then we all had to pick up one snowball and find the original owner. It was a great way to get to know the folks we would be learning and playing with all weekend. After the snowball fight, we learned about and discussed what Jesus meant when he told us to love our neighbors. The rest of the weekend was focused on exploring these principles of  loving others and doing for them, what we wish for ourselves.

Saturday was by far our busiest day. The morning was spent outside playing games like elbow tag, wizard-dwarf-giant, and capture the flag. And if you thought running around playing capture the flag was tiring in the summer, ask us about running around in knee deep snow. After about an hour of heroic jail breaks and flag capturing, we needed a rest. Our cabin was perfect for doing just that. It had two large bunk rooms, a kitchen, 3 bathrooms, and a common area for us to gather and play games in. Once we were recharged, the afternoon was spent skiing, tubing and ice skating at King Pine Ski Resort. No one broke anything and we all had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather. So it was a total success!

And the evening was filled with activities too! After dinner, we braved the cold and went to a campfire by the lake. We sang songs, laughed at skits and even performed a few of our own. If you hear some of our youth singing weird songs about Abraham and Issac fishing, the McCavish brothers, or Boom-Chicka-Boom, you shouldn't judge, they are some catchy tunes!

We warmed up after the camp fire in the conference center with an ice cream social (because it is never too cold for ice cream). And we continued our lessons about loving our neighbors. The entire camp was split into groups and asked to perform skits that showed how one can go about loving their neighbor. Whether it was a Mr. Rodgers sing-a-long, a snapshot of life in a gym class, neighbors feuding over silly disagreements, or a game of charades, all the skits were fun and inspiring to watch. Before we went to bed, each youth was asked to spend a five minutes reflecting on what it means to love your neighbor and think about everything that we discussed.  Seconds after the lights went out, everyone was asleep.

On Sunday morning, we all met together in the conference center chapel for worship. The sermon was about the Ten Commandments and we got to walk around and write our thoughts about each commandment on a sticky note. Then we shared our thoughts with each other. The Pastor highlighted the idea that we all have knowledge and wisdom to share with each other. We can love our neighbors by sharing it. After the service, we retreated to the upstairs lounge as a group to discuss what we learned throughout the weekend. We also played a modified version of "Bowl of Nouns" called "Puzzle box full of words and other phrases from our weekend." It was a great way to say goodbye to camp. All in all, it was a great weekend and one we are not going to forget any time soon. Thanks to everyone who helped make it possible!

    

Rock Climbing

We Have Reached the Top!

JWUMC Youth get ready to do some climbing

This past Saturday, the John Wesley Youth Group traveled to Carabiner's Indoor Climbing Gym in New Bedford for an evening of climbing and fun. The goal of the evening was to challenge ourselves to climb higher. Youth put their climbing skills to the test on the bouldering wall, the rope ladder, the chain ladder, and many of the routes that stretch three stories above the ground. Most of our young climbers reached the top of quite a few different routes, and just about everyone climbed higher than they thought they could.

Racing to the top

After the climbing was done, we ate some pizza and talked about what we noticed. In climbing, you have to rely on the rope and the person belaying you to keep you safe. We discussed who we rely on in our lives to keep up safe. It was a great discussion and I think we walked away with a better appreciation for all the wonderful people we have in our lives. It was a great trip and we can't wait to return again and climb even higher!

Bouldering on the wall

MLK Day

We Came, We Served, We Zumba

Our group amidst the over 200 food bags that we helped pack

Another MLK Day of service is officially in the books. This year, we celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by "Bridging the Hunger Gap" with Americorps Cape Cod and folks from all over the Cape. We spent the morning at Camp Lyndon in Sandwich with the mission to learn more about being healthy and eating right, as well as helping others to do the same.

#butfirstletmetakeacarselfie

Station 1 where we learned about eating seasonally and locally

The first station that we went to taught us all about the food we eat and drink. We learned that eating locally and seasonally is a great way to make sure there are enough resources for everyone to share. We also learned that eating less meat can help ensure that crops are used most efficiently, feeding people instead of livestock. And don't even get us started on how much sugar is the stuff we eat and drink!

Add a bunch of dry ingredients
into a mason jar, give it to
someone in need, serve with love

Our second station was the main event. Over 200 families will receive bags of food during winter break this year and we helped to pack them. Included in the bags are enough meals to feed kids that usually receive free and reduced lunches for a week. There is even a mason jar of "Friendship Soup" that we helped to create!

Station 2 included an assembly line of people making jars or
"Friendship Soup"

And we finished up the morning with some exercise, because part of staying healthy is staying active. We showcased our dance moves and had a blast dancing around. All in all, it was a great day filled with service and learning and we can't wait to see what we will get into next year. Thank you to all of those that helped chaperon, drive, organize and partake in the fun.

Happy New Year

Join Us for Our New Series

The new year brings a new focus to our lessons for the next few weeks. We will be learning lessons about ourselves and each other through the lens of games. Last week, we learned about our special gifts and abilities by learning the game of chess. This week we will see what basketball could possibly teach us about maturity and spiritual growth...

Thanksgiving Food Drive

We are Thankful for Food...

And the Generous People of Falmouth!

The end of a cold morning yielded 4 carriages full of food for the Falmouth Service Center

Last Saturday, our Supermarket Food Drive was a smashing success. We collected 4 shopping carts full of food, all thanks to the generosity of the people of Falmouth! From 10am to 1pm, we stood outside of Shaw's Supermarket and passed out fliers that listed the items most needed by the Falmouth Service Center for their Thanksgiving Baskets. In addition to these items, shoppers bought other non-perishable foods that the Service Center is always in need of out. Click here for the flyer.

We would like to first thank all the youth that braved the cold, talked with patrons, and made all of this happen. We also want to thank Shaw's and our parent volunteers for their help in making this possible. And thank you to everyone who donated!

Two of our youth take a break and drink some hot apple cider!

Halloween Party

A Spooktacular Success!

I would like to start with a big thank you to all of those who helped make our Halloween Party a fun and wonderful event. Between the doughnut eating contest, the candy corn race, wink-wink murder, mummy wrapping and random dancing, there was a lot to do. Thank you for your help!

This year we played a game called Methodist And Really Incredible Other People Acting Ridiculous Together At Youth-Group (M.A.R.I.O. P.A.R.T.A.Y!) We split into four teams and tried to get as many points as possible. This included playing mini-games, performing task dictated by chance cards and Bowser chance cars, and singing Karaoke. 

The goal of the night was to continue to build a group of young people that can work together to accomplish great things. To this end, we read the story of the Ghouled Samaritan, a tale about helping others no matter who they are. If you had fun at the Halloween Party, please sign up for our Food Drive coming up soon. Click here for more info on that.

Bellow is the full text of "The Ghouled Samaritan"

Once Upon a time in the village of Graveyard town in the land O Halloween there lived a little ghoul. He was scary and grotesque and was very capable of scaring just about anyone he wanted to scare. In fact, he was known as the ugliest ghoul of them all and possessed all the necessary characteristics you would want in a good ghoul. On Halloween night, he would spend most of his time scaring little children, but in the off-season, which was 364 days of the years (365 on leap years) he would spend his time scaring the other inhabitants of the Halloween land. In fact all of the villages in Halloween land would spend the off-season trying to scare each other and out-do the other villages. And the biggest rival of Graveyard town was the village next door, Tombville. Nothing made our ghoul happier than to scare the inhabitants of Tombville and send them crying home to their mummies…

On most days, he would find a bush that was covered in shadows and wait for an unsuscpecting Tombvillian to walk by, then he would jump out and scream at them. It was a classic scare and rather simple, but it was very effective and achieved the desired result. However, on this particular day, things became more complicated. As our little ghoul was hiding in the bushes, he saw a mummy walking up the road, but instead of being happy and skipping down the road like most mummies, this mummy was already crying and seemed very sad. Before it got the bush where our little ghoul was hiding, the mummy sat down under a tree and started crying ever more loudly. The little ghoul wondered why the mummy was crying and wanted to ask it, but he was unsure of what to do. Just then he saw another mummy walking down the road. Our little ghoul recognized it at once, it was the mummy of king tut! “Surely,” our little ghoul though, “Surely the king will stop and ask this poor mummy what it is wrong.” But upon noticing the crying mummy, the mummy of King Tut walked a little faster and passed by without asking. “Wow, what a mean mummy,” our little ghoul thought. But then he saw another mummy coming down the road and he knew this mummy would stop and ask the crying mummy what was wrong. This was because the mummy skipping down the road was the mummy of a mother. It was a mommy mummy and they wre known throhgout Halloween Lan as the most compassionate of the all the creatures. But upon noticing the crying mummy, the mommy mummy crossed over to the other side of the road and skipped by even faster.

Our little ghoul could not believe it, mummies were supposed to help each other, and two of the most respected mummies just walked right by and fellow mummy in need. Our little ghoul could not stand it. So instead of sacring the crying mummy, he walked over and asked it what was wrong. Our little ghoul and the crying mummy ended up talking for hours and hours about allt he issues a young creature faces in the Land of Halloween. Our little ghoul cheered it up and even told it a few funny jokes like, why the skeleton couldn’t cross the road and who Frankenstein took to the school dance. And together they learned that it is ok to compete with one another, but when someone is in need, you should try and help them out.

Geocaching

We found more Treasure!

Mr. Tags holds up a small trinket found in a traditional geocache

Youth gather around as we go through
the treasures in a geocache.

   A small plastic Dora the Explorer ring may not seem like a treasure. But after walking a few miles through the woods, it seems nearly as valuable as gold! After School last Friday the youth met in the youth room and we embarked on a geocaching journey into Goodwill Park. We completed 3 stages of a 10 stage geocache and also found a more traditional cache along the way. For all you muggles out there (muggles are people that do not geocache), geocaching is kind of like a high tech treasure hunt. People upload the coordinates of "caches" to a website and other people like us can download them onto our handheld GPS device and go find them.

  

   Some caches like the one we did last Friday involve multiple steps. We were directed to locations and then we had to find letters that were either found on a plaque, written under a rock, or stapled to a tree. Once we collect all the letters, we will be able to figure out the coordinates to the final cache and collect the treasure!

   

   At the end of a long and tiring afternoon, we closed with a circle prayer and thanked God for our wonderful group of young people and for the adventurers out there that hid and maintained the caches we enjoyed. Thanks geocachers, and thank you Mrs. Harbison for being a volunteer chaperon!

Youth Group Begins Again!

Youth Group Starts This Sunday

A game of "mummy wrap" during our annual Halloween Party

It is a new year and time to start meeting again. This year, we will be meeting every Sunday evening from 4-5pm down in the Youth Room. We have lots of fun events planned for this fall including Geocaching and a Halloween Party. We are also going to do some community service in the form of a canned food drive during the Thanksgiving Season and our live nativity around Christmas. See you soon!

Six Flags was Fun!

by Zoe

The end of a tiring and fun day at the park.

On August 4th, 2014, the JWUMC Youth Group took a road trip to Six Flags New England! At the start of the day, Skylar, Miranda, and Mr.Tags were brave enough to ride The "Bizzaro!" while Milo, Josh, Zoe, Clayton and Tyler rode the Gotham City Gauntlet at least 5 times in a row.  Even though it was really hot, everybody had a blast! (There were misting machines to help us cool off a bit!) 

Getting ready to ride the Buzzsaw

We had a picnic lunch in the shade of sandwiches, veggies, chips, and fruit. Then after lunch we headed down to the water park to refresh and take a cool dip. We rode the Tornado water slide together, went down tube slides and body slides. We played under a big fountain and splashed around in the wave pool. It was a great end to a great day.

Special thanks to our volunteer sponsors, Ms. Tiffany and Ms. Julie. This would not have happened without Mr. Tags, so THANKS Mr. Tags! Six Flags was a great way to spend a summer day with friends!  If you missed Six Flags this time around, you definitely don't want to miss the next trip!

Summer Programs

Summer is Here,

Lets Have Some Fun!

There are plenty of fun and exciting things happening at the church this summer:

Lock-In

July 18

5pm to midnight

Come to the youth room for a night of games, food, movies, and lots of fun.  This is a great event to bring a friend, and lots of energy to.  We will try and stay up until midnight!

Falmouth Bike Lab, Earn-A-Bike

July 7-11

July 21-25

9am to noon

This summer, the FBL will be holding its Earn-A-Bike program where youth can come and learn about bikes and how to ride them.  At the end of the program, youth will have earned a bike that they can take home!  It is a lot of fun and teaches many valuable skills.  Sign up by emailing Mr. Tags at jwygfalmouth@gmail.com. More info at www.falmouthbikelab.blogspot.com.

Field Trip to Six Flags

August 4

All Day

Celebrate the last few weeks of summer freedom with a trip to Six Flags.  We will meet at the church early in the morning and drive to Six Flags for the day.  We had lots of fun last year and even road some big roller coasters!

Cape Cod Puppet Gam

July 8, 15, 22, 29 and Aug 5

4pm

Come and enjoy a puppet show put on by Dream Tale Puppets and other troupes throughout the region.  It's a great event for the whole family and one that will surely make you smile.  More info at www.dreamtalepuppets.org.

Egg Hunt

The Eggs Were Found!

we hid over 1800 eggs

Holy week was a very busy week for us at the church so I apologize for the late post.  But just so you know, our Easter Egg Hunt went great!  We had over 1800 eggs and they were gone is just under 18 minutes!  There were potato sack races before hand and delicious "resurrection rolls" to eat after all the egg hunting was done.  Thanks to all the folks that helped out and to all the youth that stuffed all those eggs!

we had so many eggs, some of them were just "hidden" on the lawn

We Stuffed Over 1,000 Eggs!

Thanks to all the youth and parents that helped stuff Easter Eggs last Sunday.  In two hours, we managed to stuff over 1,000 eggs and eat three large pizzas!  We would also like to thank the good people of John Wesley UMC for donating so much candy.  We had so much candy, Mr. Leonard thought he had died and gone to candy heaven!

Join us this Saturday at 8am to help hide Easter Eggs for the 10am Easter Egg Hunt that is open to the entire community.