Girls in ARC

ARC stands for Airdrie Regional Campus. This is a satellite campus of Center Street in Calgary. Savannah and Rebeccah have been part of their youth group on and off for the last year. They are an amazing youth group led by Grover, that's right, not Cookie Monster or Oscar the Grouch but Grover. 

Ok not that grover but Grover Bradford. He and a handful of leaders and parents do a great job of leading the kids to do learn about Jesus, learn about themselves and to do service projects. 

      They have helped locally by collecting food door to door for the food bank and cleaning a yard. 

They have helped in Calgary by making sandwiches for the Mustard Seed. 

They have helped internationally by packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, which is the reason for the pile of shoes blocking our doorway yesterday as we were blessed with their presence at our home filling shoeboxes.

Keep up the great work ARC youth! Thank you for caring.

SUNDAY KIDS TIME

 Two weeks ago we began hosting a Kids Time on Sunday afternoons at 3:30pm. The kids practice their memory verses, sing Bible songs, listen to Bible stories, do crafts and play games all centered on a specific theme or Bible verse.

Parents are happy with the memory verses we have chosen lately that include

Children obey your parents for this pleases the Lord
and Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Thank to Sherri and Megan for bringing your children to learn about Jesus and to entertain us with their antics, the kids that is :) Thanks to Savannah and Rebeccah for all their help.

Survival Of The Driest

Becca took an option this semester called "Survival of the Smartest". Its an outdoor ed class led by Mr Giroux that teaches survival skills. To cap off the class and use the skills that they were taught they had an overnight wilderness camping trip to an area about 1 hour from Airdrie in the Elbow River valley.

Will and 3 others from Company of Adventurers led the camp under the supervision of Mr Giroux, Mme Emilie and 2 parents including myself.

The kids built shelters, cooked their own meals on single burner stoves, went for a hike, practiced building fires and played a lot of fun games, all outside, in the snow. 

As the temperature dropped during the night to -5C the kids learned the importance of warm sleeping bags and dry clothes as they tried stay warm and fall asleep in the shelters that they had built.

Becca had some trouble falling asleep after a roommate said that Chucky was outside their shelter. Mme Emilie reluctantly got out of her warm sleeping bag and went over to comfort and reassure the girls that Chucky wasn't out there.


After a long, dark and cold night the sun finally came out and the adults and kids came back to life (sort of...). The kids made themselves breakfast which varied from cereal and milk to breakfast burritos. Then they played some field games, followed by an awesome hike to a ridge overlooking the Elbow River Valley. The bus was waiting when we got back from the hike and took us back to warm dry homes and beds.

I'm proud to say that all the kids and adults survived the adventure. At the end of the second day they were asked what advice they would pass on to the next group of kids. The comments included:  dress warmly, stay dry, bring extra socks and choose your roommates carefully, which is probably the best piece of advice given :).

KIDS CAMP 2012 OVERWHELMING SUCCESS!!!!

Please note that this post is under construction. Check back from time to time as I plan to post many more photos and videos of the Kids Camp.
 

Tom training an up and coming registrar

This year's edition of Kids Camp was an amazing, overwhelming, great, fun, outstanding time. Riverside Baptist Church in Colorado sent 52, yes 52 volunteers to help Genesis put on the Camp. There were 99 families that came to the camp with almost 200 kids. The camp was free for the kids because of the generosity of Riverside Church and local businesses and organizations that donated money and goods for the camp. The kids had a choice of basketball, soccer or arts and crafts.

We offered T-ball for the first time this year for younger children and it was well received. Dave, the lead instructor quickly realized on day 1 that the children did not even know the basics of baseball! So on day 2 he began the day by teaching them how to shell and spit and eat sunflower seeds and how to make bubbles with bubble gum. Once they had those two important skills down pat they could get to the other less important stuff like throwing and batting :)

Here is a link to a 6 minute video on Youtube with photos from the T-ball area. Enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6OwnkYsaA

 

We had a ball at Paintball

John Miller of Young Life likes to have fun. He is a never ending source of games and outings to just have fun. A couple of weeks ago he organized a trip to Capture the Flag 35 km west of Cochrane. He and I and 9 kids had an awesome day. We loaded up with paintballs and split up into 2 teams. First we faced off in the junkyard. Not long into the game one of my team mates nailed me. He thought I was on the other team!! We played twice in the junkyard before stopping for lunch.  After our hot dogs and a little rest we headed to the woods for another round. Our team got destroyed again... Eventually everyone ran short on paintballs so we just starting shooting each other. Dawson, Avery, Rebeccah, Chantal, Bethany, Caleb, Calem, Josh and Carter had a blast. Thanks John

Just Give Me Jesus

A powerful video about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! When life is overwhelming and it seems like there is no where to escape and no where to turn, turn to Jesus.

CURRENT STUDENTS LEAVE THEIR MARK ON AIRDRIE

Deanna, Christina, Danielle,  Hanna and Brianne made a great impression on the folks of Airdrie in just 4 days. They came to help in whatever way was needed and they sure did.

DAY 1 - They helped with Jim and Heather's landscaping and played with Gracy and Summer.  The afternoon was spent playing with the neighbors children in the park.

DAY 2 - Savannah, Rebeccah and I joined them to paint Korey's fences. His cat helped out as well by rubbing up against the painted fences from time to time. The next time I saw his cat he had a Lion cut all the paint was gone! The afternoon they enjoyed playing with the neighbor's kids again.

DAY 3 - Time to switch gears again. This time volunteering along with my girls and I to serve lunch to the folks at Propak to celebrate a safety milestone. Josh from Smittys was hired to cater the meal and the 8 of us were there to lend a hand. Queen Savannah made a guest appearance and spent some time visiting with Lionel, the man who is supplying Hank for her to ride in the rodeos and parades.

Thank you girls for all your hard work. You rock!!

DAY 4 - What can I get them to do today? John Miller of Young Life asked if they could help Matt and his family to move out of their home and the girls were up to to it!! Matt was done one day ahead of schedule because of all the extra help that he received. His family was very thankful for the help they received. Josh treated all of us and my family to a free meal at Smittys afterwards to thank us for helping at Propak. What a great way to end our time together. Hope to see you girls again before the summer is over.