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!