What happens when you give the youth your camera

You get lots of selfies. And shadow photos. And really, really good pictures.

I'm impressed.

I'm also surprised that there are so few selfies. I expected more.

These pictures are from our trip to Meijer Gardens on Thursday.

Now I have to chose which ones to share since they took 97 really good pictures!

Shadow pictures with the plants.

 Everybody around the Marshall Fredericks fountain.

 Drew, Brian, Caleb, Jasmin and Taylor with Fred and Lena Meijer.

Drew and "Mad Mom"

 Pippa, Jasmin, and Francine.

 Can you guess which three took the shadow picture?

 Checking out the sculpture from all angles (this is from the ground, they all went and laid under it for a new perspective).

 Anyssa and Francine.

Checking out the koi in the pond

 Can we roll down the hill?

All together! Three, two, one… roll!

I really did enjoy seeing the gardens from their perspective. I wish they had taken more pictures! 

Thursday

I'm working on our playlist for tomorrow. While I wait for my phone to sync, I'll tell you about today.

We went to Meijer Gardens! (The Arts Alive Campers and the Jr. High.)

I let them take pictures with our camera. I haven't even looked through them yet to see how many selfies there are. That's going to be interesting…

We walked around the sculpture park before eating lunch. Then we had a workshop and we explored the wetlands. We found all of the things on our scavenger hunt. The things we were to look for were:
butterflies
birds
duckweed
turtles
feathers
footprints
muskrat
dead wood
dragonflies
frogs
cattails
ducks

Yes, we saw all of those! Plus a few extra (see photos below). I don't know which student found the muskrat, but it was happily chomping away at some food and we (thirty or so 4th-9th graders plus adults) managed to check him out. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was a pet and they planted him there.

I snapped a couple of pictures on my phone.

 Here are the swans.

And here are a few of my students rolling down the hill en masse. Until they all crashed into each other. At which point they all got up, stumbled around for a few seconds until one of them yelled, "let's do it again!" and they all ran back up the hill.

Wednesday

We wrapped somewhere around forty book covers (front and back).

We enjoyed a drumming demonstration and danced again.

We (the Jr. High) went and got ice cream at D.Q.

I had a meeting and then stopped at Subway to get our sandwiches for Thursday.

People don't pay attention to t-shirts. I was wearing ours from last year. It says "FUMC Jr. High Youth" and has hands in a circle around the city skyline. I think it's graphically eye-catching.

The man behind the counter, who was making the sandwiches, asked if I was a teacher. I said, no, Jr. High Youth leader. He kept asking questions about us. I always like to brag about our students so I didn't mind his questions. I just couldn't understand what about my t-shirt he didn't get. On second thought, he probably couldn't see my t-shirt from where he was standing. I'm sure that was it.

Even though it's neon green.

Oh well, we know who we are. And now they do too.

drumming

Our Mission Week of Giving is at the same time as the Arts Alive Camp which is our church's version of Vacation Bible School. There is art, music and of course Bible lessons.

Last year, the Jr. High youth saw the younger kids learning African drumming. They asked why they didn't get to do that. I didn't realize they would want to, so I didn't ask.

I asked this year.

Yesterday we ended the day with drumming and dancing. The youth didn't realize we'd be dancing.

It was so much fun.

I love African drumming/music. I feel it deep within. Like it's in my core. Like we all came from a place where drumming and music wasn't taught, it was known.

I cannot drum.

I played the flute in marching band, pep band and concert band.

I can march to the beat of any drum.

Today we just had drumming lessons. It was a different director and he took care to give us clear instructions. We actually sounded good today. Yesterday we were just loud.

We will not drum tomorrow. We will watch a group drum instead. I think it will be most impressive.

let's volunteer

It's our Jr. High Mission Week of Giving.

I picked a short title. It's easier for everyone to remember.

We worked with various local non-profit groups last year. I don't want/like to repeat activities for a number of reasons. One of which is that, at this age specifically, they will remember what they did and how they felt last time. If it's different, which we all know it will be, and they don't like it there is no coming back from that. So if I just do something different, I don't have to deal with obstinance.

I've learned a lot over the years.

The other main reason we do different things is because it shows them how many different agencies there are just in our city.

This week we are working with the tutoring program that is at one of the local GRPS elementary schools. The tutoring program is run through our church. We staff it, we send the majority of the volunteers, we support it financially. When I asked Jer (the woman in charge) what we the Jr. High could do to help, I think she almost cried.

Today, before lunch, nine youth unpacked, counted, and "stuffed" 135 pencil boxes. Each box has two pencils (which two girls spent time sharpening), two pencil top erasers, a pencil sharpener, scissors and a box of crayons.

It took them less than two hours.

Our next task is wrapping book covers for the tutoring program's book writing activity. Fortunately, there is no specific number. They also need to be neat. It should take up tomorrow and Wednesday's time.

I can't brag about these kids enough. It gives me great encouragement to know that our future is in their hands. They will go far and do well. For that, I am very thankful.

hungry for more

Two weeks ago, I had a mission week with my Jr. High youth. We "gave back" to our community. It was a lot of fun and a lot of good work. There were ten students total and four volunteers (plus myself) who helped out throughout the week

Monday
We worked with Spark Foundation. We bought school supplies and assembled ten kits to send to the Mzesa school in Africa. We also learned how to make friendship bracelets by finger weaving (a style of friendship bracelet I learned to make back in my days as a counselor at UM camps in southern Indiana). We kept making bracelets all week long. By the end of our week (Thursday was our last day), we had made seventy-nine!

Tuesday
We volunteered at Westminster Food Pantry. Our church collects items year-round to donate to this particular food pantry. They are just a block away (however, it was over the construction and around the block to reach them). They serve the immediate downtown area and are only open a couple days a week. A person will walk in, hand over their id (proof of their address, if they live outside the area that Westminster serves, they are told where they can find their local pantry, but are likely given food that day), be entered into a computer database (part of the funding grants provide is collected from this database), wait to be called over for an "interview" (the interview is where they pick several items from different columns on a marker board), the list is given to the kitchen volunteers, the kitchen volunteers pack bags full of the grocery/toiletries as selected in the interview, and then the person is called up to a table to receive their "groceries".

It's a lot faster and easier than all of that.

The ten students chose which area they wanted to volunteer and took their station. We had a very busy morning. I don't know how many people came through, but it had to have been close to fifty.

The people who visit the food pantry are only allowed to come in once a month. They also receive an extra item if they bring in their own bags. That got a little confusing back in the kitchen. The sheet with their chosen items would also tell what type of bag they brought. Except that the descriptions were a little vague at first. "Black bag" belonged to several different owners at one point. Once we started to clarify details on the bags (black with blue handles, black with "Spartan") it went faster and easier.

Each student had the opportunity to switch spots. I'm very proud of them for trying things that were out of their comfort zone and never once complaining about any of the tasks.

Wednesday
We volunteered with Kids Food Basket. In the morning, we met for a "poverty simulation". We split up into three groups and were given actual scenarios and had to budget accordingly. The coordinator from KFB, Catrina, was thoroughly impressed with the youth. She told them that their questions were better than any high school groups she had. She was also very impressed with how well they thought outside the box.

Again, no one got frustrated, even after "reality checks" were thrown at us (not literally, although that could make the simulation more stimulating).

Thursday
We went with the Arts Alive Camp to Howell Nature Center. We took a tour of the Global Village. We did a low ropes course and we saw the wild/native animals that HNC cares for.

The goat
We also helped keep track of money raised to buy a goat during the Arts Alive Camp (our church's version of VBS, except completely different). On Monday, one of my students drew a goat on a poster board. To keep track of dollar amounts, she added flowers. Each flower represented $10. The first day they had collected $20. The pastor challenged the Arts Alive campers. If they collected the $120 to buy a goat, he would match it and donate the money for a second goat!

On Tuesday, it was announced that an anonymous donor said if the kids collected $120 and the pastor donated $120, that another $120 would be given for a third goat.

Guess what happened on Wednesday?

Another donor stepped up. If these kids collected $120, Heifer International was going to get four goats.

Back to Tuesday. After we finished working at Westminster, Dairy Queen was on our minds. I called the church to let the director know that we wouldn't be back in time to announce how much money had been collected that morning ($90). The director had been given more money throughout the day and, once we did the quick math, we realized we had reached our $120! But since the Jr. High group wouldn't be there to announce it, we would just save it for Wednesday afternoon.

Why not see how much we could collect on Wednesday morning?

We collected another $120 is what we collected.

We didn't just get one goat, or two goats, or even four goats. We had enough money for FIVE goats.

I'm sure after it was announced that Sunday in church that more money came in. I haven't heard though. I also know the director was thinking that maybe instead of goats we could buy a cow or some chickens. (I think the goat is the cheapest "gift" animal through Heifer International, but I'm not sure. You can look it up!)

I don't know what happened in church on Sunday, because at 5:45am Friday morning, Bill and I were flying to Savannah for a wedding.

The wedding of the young woman who was a flower girl in our wedding.

WAAAA!!

She should not be allowed to get married.

Except it's too late and she is. He is a very nice young man and I think they are perfect together. We wish them both many years of happiness and love.

While in Savannah, I had started reading, "The Hunger Games". Finally. Skylar had sold me on reading them and then let me borrow them. I took the first one... Once I started, I didn't want to stop. I finished it before we made it home Sunday night. Then I devoured (pun intended) the second one in two days. I only stopped to eat, sleep and work. I finished the third one over this last weekend.

I realized I could write this post and double the meaning of the title. And also explain where I've been and why I haven't blogged.

We also finished the hallway. But that has nothing to do with being hungry or reading books. So I'll post pictures and tell that story later...