We're Not In Kansas Anymore

So, a week ago we returned, relatively unscathed, from Campfire. It was a fantastic week, if not a bit of a strange one. We were headed towards Goderich not even a day after a tornado devastated the town. 

This was always in the back of our minds, as we went through our week running the camp program that I described in my last post. Then Wednesday the thunderstorm warnings came. Nothing really happened. But then the tornado warnings came. Again. This town ripped apart by a tornado was facing the prospect of more volatile weather not even a week later. Our kids were scared. Some of them terrified. They'd all seen the news and pictures. 

Leaders herded kids into shelter, then a few of us huddled around radios to keep up with the latest warnings (evidently, tornado warning music is actually pretty good. Aside from my concern that the announcers weren't saying anything, probably because they too were hunkered down in the soundproof padded rooms, they did pick a good playlist. And I digress). Leader's and kid's cell phones were ringing off the hook as concerned parents texted and called after watching the Weather Network. The guys were scared, but tried not to show it. It was written all over their faces. The girls were much harder. They were visibly scared and shaken. Some were crying. So, huddled in the only shelter we could find, we did what any sane human being would do: we sang Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of our lungs, complete with guitar solos. But as the song ended, that awkward tension of not knowing what's going on began to take over again. 

By now, the sky looked wicked, and was divided in two: tornado clouds and blue sky. We had no rain, no hail, and the wind was there, but not gale force. Some of us shared Scripture, reminding the girls that God was in control of the weather. At one point as I walked in to check on the girls after listening to another weather bulletin they were all lined up in a massage train. 

I don't think I could have predicted what happened next. The next time I returned to look in on them, one of the leaders shushed me as I walked in. We went outside and she told me what was going on. The girls had rallied around those who were very shaken by what was going on. At one point, as I'm sure they began talking about anything to not think about the weather, one of the girls shared something that was going on in her life. One of the girls, asked if she could pray for her. Within minutes, prayer was bouncing through the washroom, from girl to girl, with no leaders leading or piping in. I wasn't in the room, so I hope I'm giving this story justice. But God's peace showed up. Not long after, the warnings were lifted and the funnel clouds were gone. After a spectacular evening program, I sat out with a few of my colleagues and we watched the stars in the now clear sky. And we saw a shooting star so big that I've only seen a handful in my life. God was with us. 

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To read about The Salvation Army's relief efforts in Goderich, go here.

Sun, Sand, and Smores...

We're just a couple of weeks away from Campfire, our final trip of the summer. [Note: I am disappointed to be writing "final" and "summer" in the same sentence. I must make the most of the weeks I have left]. I look forward to this trip every year, since it's a chance to take our youth out of their usual setting, and to do something different with them. We also get to see youth that we see once a year at Campfire, and it is a great time to catch up with them.

Campfire is a pretty special setting, it's not really anything to do with the physical setting, but more with the environment and feel that the youth and leaders bring to it. For some kids, it's the rare chance to get out of Collingwood. For others, its reconnecting with friends they made at Campfire last year. Others are there for a completely new experience, meeting new people, trying new things, and experiencing the Youth For Christ family in action. Campfire is a crazy place, with people playing goofy improv games at the campfire, or plotting ways to prank their friends. It can also be a really meaningful time, where tent conversations or afternoons spend on the beach can lead to discussions that leave a profound impact on both youth and leaders alike. 

This year, we are excited for the youth that we have at Campfire. We are praying that sponsorships come through and that they follow through with their registrations. We know that God has got exciting things in store for the youth who are attending, especially as we enter into lots of discussions about life and Jesus. Campfire is a chance where we can just be together, enjoying nature and each other, and through that, God is present in a very real way.

Summer in the City... or town

So I'm in summer mode. I know exams don't start for another week, and that this weather is barely hitting the 20s, but June just kind of does that to me. I've already been to Canada's Wonderland, our golf tournament is this week, and then next week we go for a few days of holidays in Algonquin Park, so summer is here. 

This summer we've really made a point to be intentional with our schedule. Often many youth programs shut down for the summer, or at least pare back a little, but we take the opposite approach. The youth are out of school, and there are some who work and some who don't, so why not take advantage of the time that they have free? We talked about how that would look for us; last summer we were so ridiculously busy with camps, family weddings, and a mission trip that we barely had room to come up for air, and we didn't want to drop the ball on this year. 

We are excited to be able to be open five days a week from Tuesday-Saturday. Our drop-in will remain open most weekends (with the exception of holidays and Elvis fest), and we will offer programs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We've had lots of youth asking about DJ classes and jam sessions, so on Tuesdays from 12-3 we're opening "The Drop", which is a music and art program, it'll give the youth a chance to hone their craft, have some free healthy snacks, and our staff will be able to interact with them in a really meaningful way through it. Wednesdays we start early with The Breakfast Club, which is a free breakfast and a Bible study, and then we go somewhere to do something (ranging from the beach to the Science Centre to the bowling alley). Those days are super fun, and often we join in with our other youth centres on them. Thursdays are Sports at Sunset Point, where we go to play pickup sports and enjoy the weather (I'm stoked for endless hours of beach volleyball!). Then drop-in on Friday and Saturday rounds out the week. 

Summer is a sweet time for relationship building with the youth. Our times with the youth aren't so much programs in the sense that we have endlessly planned our time to the second, but more open environments where we have something to do, but where the focus is really on building relationships and memories with the youth. In August, we have Campfire, where we take the youth to Goderich. This is a highlight of everyone's summer, and we do crazy things together, and have amazing conversations about God and life. 

And at the end of the day, that's why I like summer so much. I am able to hang out with youth all the time, to live our lives together, to grow, to laugh, to hurt alongside one another. We do crazy things together, but it makes all of our lives interesting, and it definitely keeps us off the streets in the summer. So I know, I'm a week ahead of the "official" start of summer, but it my mind it's wll underway. 

Changes, ch-ch-changes

I read somewhere once that 75% of blogs started with, "it's been a while since I've posted...". And I think I've referenced this before, which is a whole new level of sad. But, the fact that I haven't posted in a month has been for good reason, and I'm excited to share it with you! 

This past weekend, our local churches hosted "We Love Collingwood Day", an opportunity to do community service projects throughout the town. The Door was one of the beneficiaries of this day, and we were really excited to have a team of carpenters join us, as well as offer a free BBQ for our youth. We were able to make some pretty significant changes to the centre, including the addition of two custom entertainment units to store and secure our gaming systems, and the installation of a stage. My last post on here was a pictoral tour of the youth centre, so please use that for comparison. Here is the new layout of our back half:

Our stage can function as a stage when we are DJing, or have a coffee house.

Here we are setting up for program, just a couple of hours after we set up the stage.

Then when we don't need the stage to be a stage, it is a functioning seating area.

And here's our entertainment unit, and we have another identical one. They're mobile and lockable, and hold stuff!

 We're really stoked about the potential that this brings us for future programs, and with our summer schedule being released soon, it comes just in time for movie nights and open mic events.


And a big THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU to Journey Church, Greg and his crew, and all who were involved in We Love Collingwood, you have helped us continue to grow in the programs we can offer, and our youth think that this is pretty much the coolest thing ever! We are glad to be a part of the community with you!
 

A Tour

From our entrance: you can see the game tables, our seating areas, and the screen at the back.

Our employment wall, that we keep updated regularly.

Our records. And our amazing brick wall!

This winter we were able to add a couple of computers for the youth to use. This one has word processing and powerpoint capabilities, as well as programs to edit photos.

We also recently had the new DJ equipment donated, allowing us to offer some more music instruction.

Our house rules

Our billiard table and snack bar.

One of our couch areas.

Community service board

Our other computer has the same programs as the first, but with music software.

Many thanks to our co-op student Justin for his photo taking skills!

When I Say Keep It, You Say Real

 A week ago, I was sitting on the beach in 30 degree weather, soaking up the last bit of sun with a bunch of youth before we left Florida for another year. We had a fantastic week. SouthBound is a highlight of the year for many of our youth and staff, and this year did not let us down.


This year our youth were challenged to "Keep It Real" by our speaker, Laura Bronson, of Keep It Real Ministries. This was not just the theme for the week, but quickly became the overall attitude and lifestyle around the camp. Youth connected in a way that we hadn't seen in a while. If a youth was hanging around the fringes, there were always one or two peers who brought them into the group, breaking down many of the cliques and boundaries that often exist in the teen world. There were so many deep discussions this year, and the focus around keeping it real and sharing our stories certainly helped youth think about important things in their lives. We talked to youth who wanted to know if they had a story to tell, youth whose stories involved trauma and tragedy, and youth who had deep questions about life, God, and how the two mix. Youth prayed for each other, a treasure we hold on to when we work with teens who are all over the place in their journey with Christ. Youth read Scripture to their peers, and shared about their faith journey in small groups. It was an amazing year. 


Of course, as with any Youth for Christ event, we were up to our usual camp shenanigans. More than one dinner was interrupted by hilarious melodramas featuring superheroes with wacky hair or Harry Potter superfans. A mysterious green rubber snake made its way into a few bunkbeds (mine included). And, we spent crazy amounts of time on the beach, wakeboarding and tubing, doing our best Baywatch impressions, and getting thrown in the water.

This trip is amazing, and it seems to get better every year. As a staff, it leaves me fired up as we return to our usual programs this week, and I'm excited for what the weekend will bring. Many youth were profoundly inspired by our week in Florida, and we look forward to growing in our relationships with them. Here's some pictures:

Tubing with our cow friends.

The wacky hair superheroes.

Minute To Win It YFC style

A dramatic presentation of the Prodigal Son.

YMCA forever!

Typgoon Lagoon

St. Patrick's day with some of the female leaders

St. Pete's Beach

Our speaker, Laura, tagged shirts for all of us.

Evening session

Friday's relay led to some swamped kayaks

The whole group

Dessert & Auction - Tickets Still Available!

SATURDAY MARCH 5, 7PM
DESSERT AUCTION BENEFITING THE DOOR YOUTH CENTRE
TICKETS $5.00

Come and support The Door Youth Centre, and join us for dessert, and then bid on some amazing pies, cheesecakes and cakes in our live dessert auction! Proceeds from the auction and free will offering go directly to support The Door!

THERE ARE STILL TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR THIS EVENT, BUT THEY ARE LIMITED!


For more information, please call the youth centre at 705-445-5445!

Lattes, Cher, and Toilet Paper Elastic Wars

Recently, we started a new program. We seem to be a very music oriented centre these days, and we wanted to feed the creativity of many of our youth. We've also had a number of youth who are becoming more and more leadership oriented at the youth centre, and were looking for something to do. Pairing that with the love that youth have for hanging out at The Door, and soon we had a coffee house brewing (oh, pun fully intended).

Our aim is to have a youth-led program, where we can facilitate and step into the background to help make it happen. In the bitter cold last night we hosted our first one, and with a dozen youth in attendance, we had success. We had three youth interested in leading, so we had them sort out the music, the games, and the overall feel of the centre. We created ambient lighting, had music by Dj Hutch (one of our youth), and even had karaoke, when Aaron coerced a bunch of the guys to join him for The Village People, Celine Dion, and, um, Cher. We served lattes, cake and cookies, had Valentines candy on the tables, and chess boards and card games. The latest trend in our circles is Minute To Win It, and there were ongoing games of ping pong tic tac toe, followed by a race to see who could break a string of toilet paper with an elastic band torpedo (if you think that it is ridiculously easy, I challenge you to go into your bathroom and office supplies, and hang a roll of t.p. off of a broom handle, letting the paper trail to the ground. Shoot away, and let me know your findings). 

Overall, we were happy with the first event, and thrilled that we had a chance to talk to our youth in an environment more calm than drop-in, but cooler than Tim Horton's. Next month, we hope to feature some youth performers, and continue the karaoke trend, which can only get better from here. And, here are some very fuzzy pics from my cell phone, enjoy!

The set-up, with DJ Hutch in the back.

The coffee and hot chocolate bar (I loved playing barista!)

Our drink menu... not bad!

Two Left Feet and Learning to Stop

Or perhaps I should say, two right feet. Our youth have been off school for sometime with exams and the turnaround to the new semester. And with winter, the group of us is starting to get a little stir crazy. Last night we went skating.

It was a great night, not too cold, and having dodged most of the nasty snow that was expected (although it was still a snow day), it was the perfect night to hit the outdoor rink. We had a few kids interested, and after Soul Food, we packed into our car and headed to the rink. I haven't skated in probably 15 years, but I didn't figure it would be too hard to remember. Like riding a bike right?

Maggie (not her real name) also hadn't skated in a while, but figured that she could dig up some skates at home, so when she met us at the rink, we had to share a laugh about the fact that she couldn't find matching skates, so she grabbed two right footed skates. How she got them the same size, I have no idea, but she managed to get them on and not skate around in circles. Craig (also not his real name), our resident tall guy, who has to be near seven feet tall, had many years of hockey under his belt and soon took off, flipping around backwards, and zooming in close to all of us who were far less skilled than he was. 

As Maggie and I slowly made our way around, I finally stopped my feet from wobbling, and was able to crosscut the ends. Stopping however, was a much different story. If I wasn't near a board, I would eventually slow down to a point where I stopped moving. If I was skating along the boards, I'd kind of throw myself into them, and grab on to stop. But if I tried to hockey stop, my newly sharpened blades would skid across the ice, sending me into a panic as I could feel myself tipping back, or turning backwards. It was not good. And Craig was eating it up. As he lapped me again and again, I reminded him that he should relish this moment of me looking like an idiot on blades, until I would get good enough to beat him. 

Aaron was trying to teach me the technique, and refresh my very foggy mind. It's just like skiing, he said, but I'm quite proficient at stopping when I'm flying downhill. While I felt frustrated at my forgetfulness of this once familiar and necessary skill, I didn't feel bad. At one point, Craig joined up with Aaron and I again, and started to show me what I should be doing. I blathered on to him about how easy he made it look as again, I felt Aaron grab the back of my jacket before I fell over again. But when I let him and Aaron come alongside me to teach me how to stop, I found that when I got over my own inability, they were both patiently skating beside me and I was making some lead in this venture. 

Before you think that I became a pro at stopping, I should tell you that I am still far away. But I can can mostly stop, kind of. My goal by the end of the winter is to know how to stop, and to be able to cover Craig in my ice flakes as I do it (I know, bad goal). Lately, I've been focusing a lot of my reading and reflection on our presence with youth. One of the things that strikes me over and over again, is that I have so much to learn from our youth. Some ways, such as learning how to stop, are practical, others, are much more profound as I've learned to be more like Jesus while walking along with our youth. We build memories together, we challenge each other, and we ask each other deep questions - and then we look for the answers together. And through the fun times like last night, and the difficult times when none of us have words to express what is going on, we grow together, learning to skate on our two right feet. 

Art Appreciation

In the fall, I posted some pictures of graffiti art our youth had done. Here are some of the other masterpieces that grace our walls at The Door Youth Centre:

 

Sketches and paintings done by our youth

Our Tape Collection - Recycled cassettes and paint = amazing!

 More to come...

2011... A Look in the Review Mirror

Happy New Year everyone! After a busy close to the year, and some much needed time off, we are back in action today, looking forward to the year that lies ahead of us! But a brief look back, as we celebrate some of the things that left their mark in 2010.


The past year was the year that our youth really took ownership in the centre. This was the first time that many of them wanted to be involved in the operating of the centre. For some, it was as simple as taking on small volunteer roles during drop-in, such as equipment sign-out. For others, it was adding their mark to the walls of the centre with a painting or a sketch. Others still gave fantastic input into special events at the centre. One young guy actually spent a night as an acting shift supervisor (closely shadowed by the real supervisor) as an exercise in leadership and to better understand just what our staff do. As our volunteers and some youth who were in the know went out of their way to challenge him with cleverly disguised bottles of ginger beer (from a distance they look exactly like a bottle of beer), he commented, "This job is hard! There are so many things going on!" And in December, when we had to rearrange the centre to accomodate some new media equipment, one of our youth visioned and directed the whole layout, making the place truly their's.


This was also the year when Project Serve really became a part of our fibre at The Door. While we had run trips in 2009, this was the year when we saw youth participate in all three trips: Toronto, Huntsville, and Mississippi. We saw so much growth in the group of youth that participated in PS, and they blew us away by the time we had completed everything. The level of committment they had to complete Project Serve was incredible! Now we have youth who want to go through the whole process again, and youth who are constantly asking when the next trip is. It's now a part of who we are at The Door, and it continues to be a great experience.


2010 was a year where we saw our partnership with the town and community around us go to a whole new level. We had some high profile events (like the Canadian Idol concert), developed stronger relationships with local service clubs, and got some decent press on local radio and in papers and magazine. We hope to continue to build this even further. 


And of course, this past year was a year when we saw God work in the lives of our youth! We had record attendance to Soul Food, and more opportunities to serve youth in meeting their practical needs. We had opportunities to pray with youth, to encourage them, and to challenge them, and it was incredible!


So with 2010 behind us, now we open ourselves up to where God is leading The Door in 2011, and expecting great things!