Youth News for September 2013

Important: Please RSVP for the Fall Retreat Now! Email tome@macalester-plymouth.org

September 8

No Explorers

5:00-7:00pm    Jr. and Sr. High Youth Group

September 13-15

No Explorers or Youth Group on the 15th

Fall Retreat

Leave: 5:00 PM on Friday (bring bag dinner for the bus)/Return: by 5:00 PM on Sunday (Note later return time from previous years)

To reserve your spot on this retreat, RSVP to tom at tome@macalester-plymouth.org ASAP, then please return consent forms and a check for $125 (made payable to Macalester Plymouth Church) by Wednesday, September 8^th. Confidential Scholarships are available.

September 22

9:30-10:30am Explorers (for 6^th-8^th grade) in Knowles Room

9:30-10:30am 2013 Mission Trip Presentation for Adult Forum

10:30-11:30am 2013 Youth Mission Trip Worship Service

5:00-7:00pm Youth Group

September 29

9:30-10:30am Explorers (for 6^th-8^th grade) in Knowles Room

5:00-7:00pm Youth Group

Youth/Chapel Choir Schedule:  Regular Rehearsals on Sundays:  Youth 9:00 - 9:30am:  Chapel 9:30 - 10:30am.

September 8, 2013:  First Rehearsal
September 15, 2013:  Regular Rehearsal
September 22, 2013:  Regular Rehearsal and SUNDAY PERFORMANCE

September 29, 2013:  NO REHEARSAL 

This Could Be You Some Day!

Hey All:

Here is a link to Claire Romey's blog about the work she is doing in Costa Rica with the proceeds of the 2013 Peacemaker Award. The Peacemaker Award is for folks 18-25 who want to make a difference in the world with the gifts they have. That means that even if travelling to a foreign country isn't your thing, there are plenty of other options for you.

Look for the information about the next Peacemaker Award in the Fall. Until then, go cheer on one of our own!


http://walkingdownthecosta.blogspot.com/

Peace,

Tom

Save the Date! Fall Youth Retreat

Hi Everyone:

I know Fall planning might be in the works right now in your homes, so I wanted to get as much of the Fall Retreat information to you as possible as soon as possible.

The Fall Retreat will be Friday September 13 to Sunday September 15 at Pilgrim Point Camp in Alexandria. It is an awesome place. It is also further away so we are going to (school) bus our way there. We will be leaving at 5pm Friday and returning 5pm Sunday. The cost is still $125.00 and there are a scholarships available (you can email me about those).

As I said, more information will be sent out as soon as details get confirmed.


While I'm at it, the Mission Trip Worship Service is Sunday, September 22 at the 10:45am service. We will also be the presenters at the adult forum at 9:30am that morning. If you were on the mission trip this past summer please add that to your calendar.

I hope you are all having a great summer!

Peace,

Tom

A Mission Opportunity

If you returned from the mission trip wanting more, here is your chance:

The Red Shirt Project is a mission opportunity offered by Robert Two Bulls, who is a priests at All Saints Indian Mission in Minneapolis with his wife Ritchie. The Project is located at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. They are looking for youth 15 years and up who are available the last two weeks in July to come and work on the reservation. My words can't do it justice, so take a look at redshirtproject.org for an idea of what you can expect.

There will be adult chaperones on the trip, but not from MPUC. If you are interested and want help getting connected give me a call.

Peace,

Tom

Many Thanks!

Many thanks are due now that this year's mission trip has come to a close.

John, Lee, Maggie, and Marsha: What a great adult team. Parents, your youthies were in great hands with this A team that worked with them not just on the job sites but during the off hours to make sure that the trip was educational, fun, and life changing.

Julia and Maddie: Strong leadership this year, absolutely amazing. They put significant time into the trip in the year leading up to it. One of the Camp Rhino people thought they were church staffers!

Mission Trip Committee: The youth on the committee were instrumental in making sure fund-raising efforts were successful and that things got planned for the trip.

Youth: As ever, the youth were hard workers and now they are bearers of the experiences shared with them by people who have been through extremely difficult times.

Congregation: For financial support, for prayers, for caring, for being interested, for doing mission work through this particular avenue.

Parents: Thanks for trusting us with your youth. Thanks for your work as parents that makes them such a pleasure to be with even when the weather is hot and work is frustrating.

The people of New Orleans and the staff of Camp Rhino and St. Bernard Project: for your mission work to the youth and adults by allowing the group to learn from you and to experience God speaking through you.

The bus drivers: for getting us there and back safely and listening to our music, movies, and general crowd noise.

I look forward to this year's mission trip service (September 22) when the youth will share what they experienced with the congregation. Until then...there's always the blog!

Peace,

Tom

Missing Camera!!!!

A camera, black Canon without a case, was misplaced on the bus ride back to town.

If you know about this, or have it, call or send a text message to Lily at 651-925-7919, and she will see that it gets returned to rightful owner.

Thanks

Nearing Mason City, ETA still 12:30 PM

Donuts in Iowa City

Just stopped for the obligatory bus donuts, and we think we'll get back at or around 12:30.  Will update as we get closer.

Making Our Way

It's just before 6:00 and most of the bus is still asleep as we seem to have figured out how to make that work just in time not to need the skill anymore.

We just passed through Hannibal, MO, which puts us on track to arrive  in Saint Paul at about 12:30, but that will partially depend on how long any stops are, so check back for updates as the morning progresses.

Thank you for letting your youthies participate in this fabulous trip -- every one of them made it a better trip than it would have been without them, and we adults were blessed to spend the week watching them grow and learn and teach each other and us.

Maggie

Prayer partners, communion... and leaving Memphis

We completed a wonderful and moving closing to the mission trip in Overton Park in Memphis. We are back on the road, and still thinking a noon arrival in Saint Paul.

Check back on Sunday morning for an update. And thank you, as always, for your prayers and support.

Lee

It's gonna be FANTASTIC!!

Or so Maggie has convinced us, about the bus ride. Bus just left French Quarter. On our way. With 21 youth.

Best estimate is noon Sunday in St Paul. We will update estimate as we go.

Lee

The Final Frontier

Here goes one last blog post,

Hey all, things are winding down here in the common room. Four people are playing Hearts, Erica's CD is playing in the TV, and the adults all look like they could use 12 hours of sleep. They deserve some hibernation, but I'm not sure that the bus tomorrow will allow it.

It has been a blast! This has been a very satisfying mission trip in that the progress was tangible, there was true need for our work, and everyone here is awesome. I have already begun to feel sadness that next year I won't be going on the mission trip. There has always been THE mission trip that starts off the summer. THE mission trip that lets me spend time and make friends with the other kids at Mac-Plymouth. THE mission trip that gives me the privilege to serve others and make a positive difference in the world. I'm going to miss it in a way that I could describe using every cliche I can think of. But I won't, because as simple as the idea of a mission trip is, it is not cheesy or shallow. A mission trip is a genuine, life-changing experience.

Today I haven't felt so hot. My stomach has felt off and has been cramping. It was fairly debilitating at the work site, much to my frustration, but since then has seemed to get a little better. I am hoping that a good nights sleep will allow my system to work itself out and I will be 100% for the trip home tomorrow. I am optimistic!

Well we are being called to bed, so I will say good night to everyone out there. Thank you for all of your support, encouragement, and love over the last four years. You guys are the best!

Henry B.

Hello back home in Saint Paul! Our week here in New Orleans has been not only amazing, but enlightening. This experience has opened my eyes; you really don't know what you have until you lose it.

All week, my construction group and I have been working on flooring and installing base-board for a woman named Gwen. Her home is located in New Orleans East and after the levee broke, her house was flooded about six feet and her family were stranded on their roof for four days, and she and her husband had to swim to safety.

Eight years prior to Katrina, Gwen still does not have a home of her own. On thursday she came to visit us to see the work we had accomplishEd in her home. She told us her story which made me realize how lucky i am with my life back in Minnesota; i have always had a home to go back to, and she has been moving around for eight years. Disasters really put our liVes in perspective, especially if you have survived them. After our week here, we will have all these memories from our experience, but we will eventually forget and they will become less prevalent in our thoughts.

Just to reminisce on a fantastic first mission trip, i want to make a special shout out "team A's" upstairs flooring crew. You really made our work at Gwen's house fun. From the infamous table saw, to our dance parties, learning to cope-physically anD mentally- and of course, finally celebrating the upstairs hallway being flush.

It was a great week and i honestly couldn't have asked for a better mission trip.

Love, erica craddock

Last day of work

Avery here!
Today was our final day of work. Unfortunately, our homeowner, Ms. Cassandra, never showed up so we couldn't meet her and learn her story. I would have liked to meet her so we could know who would be living their everyday lives in the rooms we built. The rooms were all painted this week, and it was incredible how much the bright colors helped change the house from a structure with no meaning to a house that someone would be living in for years to come. We also did a lot of the baseboard and trim around the house. Even this small detail made a big difference in how much better the rooms looked. Me and Maddy worked on the trim around the back door. At first, it was confusing because we had no idea what we were doing. Eventually, we figured it out and were able to piece it all together. It was hard to get the length just right, but when our site director came over to look at it she told us it was perfect and that we had done a great job. This was the biggest moment of satisfaction I felt all trip, since we made something from start to finish without really knowing how to start. I was sad to leave the house, since we will probably never return to see it again. I wish I could see it finished in person, but i know we made a lot of important progress in just the four days we were there. I'm glad that Ms. Cassandra will be able to move back to her real home sometime this sumer, since she has been waiting for so long. It will be nice to get back to Minnesota, but I will definitely miss New Orleans.
Bye for now,
Avery

Hi Parents
Marsha here. Each year on these trips I am touched by the hard work and good spirits of the youth.  Each one brings gifts and talents and together they make a difference.  And this year as in years past our host organizations are amazed by them. I have heard so many great comments about their hard work, generous spirits and engagement with issues.  Last night we had a long discussion about what we have experienced here in New Orleans.  We are coming back with many stories to share.  Se y'all soon. Marsha

Au Revoir New Orleans

Bonjour Minnesota!
    We have just returned from our last worship service with RHINO. Over the week we have listened to a few sermons from Durban Durban (our nickname for our keynote speaker, Andy Durban), and spiritual songs from the guest band. It's been a bit like Next Step last year, but a little less extreme. Tonight Jimmy, Henry, Paul and I sang "Prayer for the Children" to open the service.  I believe Maggie has a video.
  It's bittersweet to be leaving New Orleans; we all miss our families, our homes, our beds. But New Orleans still needs us. Being here has shown me that, even almost eight years later, so much help is still needed.  It has been an amazing experience, and very satisfying to see the work that the adult leaders, Maddy, and I put into this trip turned into an impactful, fulfilling mission trip. We worked hard, we played hard, we slept hard. What else could you ask for? I've had such a wonderful time with these wonderful people, and I can't wait to see you all soon!
Much love,
Julia Schafer
P.S- Simon is here with me, and he wants to say hi to his family. Also, shoutout to Lydia's cats. She misses you! Meow.

The little things

Hi everyone, Claire Donovan here :-)

Everyone knows how much fun we have every year doing mission work on the mission trip every year. Its always a LOT of work and we're exhausted by the end of the day. Although the main point of our trip every year is to do work and help others, we always make time to do typical teen things. We did a lot of those this week. Some of my favorite little things that happened this week were...

1. Swimming with everyone in the pool. We had a few awesome games of boys against girls pool basketball at the rec center by our dorms. Its the best way to cool off after a long day of work.

2. Yesterday, we met the cutest little dog I've ever seen, literally. He was grey and fluffy had his ears stuck out, his tongue was lolling and his little white teeth were smiling. He looked just like a happy koala and he sat in our laps and let us pet him as he licked up. He chased Jimmy in a circle hoping to get a bite of his sandwich.

3. Over the week I've aquired quite a collection of mardi gras beads. Right now my count is at 12, all colors of the rainbow. They're so shiny and I really don't want to let them out of my sight so they're next to me right now. 

5. I've liked hearing Xaver and Clem's accents this week. Its been cool having German and French teens on the trip with us.

6. Today Tom fell asleep on the couch during our free time. The couch in the middle of the lounge, surrounded by teens. You can probably guess what happened. Tom's unconcious body was transformed into the cereal king. This included putting a cereal bowl on his head, silverwear in his hands, cheerios on his lap, cards and ripped up paper thrown on him. He was pretty surprised when he woke up to all of us laughing.

7. I've played soooo many games of bananagrams (and we've made up so many words)

8. (Once again) the food has been AmAzInG, everything we've had is so good (looking forward to possibly bbq in Memphis tomorrrow night? EVen though its 9:30 and we had chicken fajitas a few hours ago, I could really go for another poboy right about now).

9. I've had a lot of time to catch up on my reading this week. I've been reading Stephen King's It and I've enjoyed discussing it and other books with the others on the trip. 

10. I've really enjoyed just spending time with everyone and getting to know everyone better. I've gotten to spend time with everyone, which has been great. We always get so close on the trip. 

Anyway, all in all its been a really fantastic trip. I'll see you all (y'all? I've been here long enough, I think I'm allowed to say that) later!!

Lots of love, 

Claire :-)

List of Strange Things

This week, Abram and I made a list of all the strange and random things we saw in New Orleans. They're the kinds of things you look at and are just confused.

1. We were driving through one of the richer neighborhoods of the city. There were a lot of mansions, and one of them had this enormous tree with a branch that stretched across the whole yard, so the homeowners had put a pillar under the branch to hold it up. It was strange, and also beautiful.

2. There are a lot of beads hanging from the trees and power lines.

3. We were driving in the bus, and we saw a power line with logs strung through it. It was really random- there's the power line, and it contains logs. I have no idea how they got there. Maybe they serve some purpose I'm not aware of.

4. Our bus is very large, and it had some trouble navigating the narrower streets. At one point, the top of our bus hit a tree branch. Only, when Abram looked back, he saw that we had not hit a tree branch. There was a sign hanging from the branch that said, "look out for tree branch." We hit the sign. Oh, the irony.

5. There were clouds shaped like a perfect heart one day. It was beautiful. After about five minutes it was gone.

6. So, Tom and I are vegetarians. We went to Mother's, a restaurant, one day, and ordered bean omelets. Because that has no meat in it, right? Wrong.

7. There was a cockroach in the bathroom, so I trapped it with a cup and a piece of paper and dropped it off our little third story balcony. It survived and happily scuttled away. What a survivor.

8. I kept track of how many I saw:

Cats: Sixteen

Lizards: Nine

Horses: Fifteen

I do love how many cats there are running around this city. 

It's been an awesome week!

-Lian

The work continues, 7 1/4 inches at a time.

I remember coming here in the summer of 2007. It was about 22 months after the Storm, and it was still a raw disaster area. Refuse was piled on the streets, no street signs made getting to work sites very challenging, and we were still doing demolition work. The work was disorganized and the neighborhoods had very little life in them except for some FEMA trailers.

Six years have gone by. Thousands of families have come back home. There have been millions of hours of volunteer time and billions of dollars invested since Mac-Plymouth first came here.

With still so much to be done.

This week we were told that the city of New Orleans still has 35,000 abandoned properties. Where the B-plusses are working in Lower Nine there are three vacant lots to the south, another next door the other way and another across the street. Just three little concrete remain. Some lots are overgrown with weeds, with no one claiming title to the property.

Where we working in the back bedroom of Miss Carlmelita's house in Lower Nine,  the laminate flooring pieces are 47 inches long and 7 1/4 inches wide. We are not very skilled and the work does not go quickly, but when Simon installed a small strip it was the second room our little team had done, and Julia and Lian had already done maybe 30 percent of the living room.

Could not help thinking that the work goes forward 7 1/4 inches at a time. Piece by piece, in our houses and the ones other volunteers are building or renovating this week, the progress continues. Can't believe that the rebuilding has taken this long with miles further to go, but we need to be thankful for the many hands that have put the pieces together, 7 1/4 inches at a time.

Thanks for your support.

Lee

Talk About Perspective

This morning at our job site, two of our little groups continued to work on laying flooring.  We had hoped to finish up both the upstairs and downstairs halls so that we could begin the living room, but both groups ran into frustration after frustration and made almost no progress.  While I won't say that tempers were flaring, there certainly was a loss of energy and enthusiasm, and the collective mood was mighty low.

At about 11:45, the owner, Miss Gwen, came by to thank us for our work and tell us her Katrina story.  Four days sitting on her roof with her husband and son, as well as some neighbors that they had rescued from another house, some of those days the sun so hot that she said that it almost felt like her skin was cooking.  After no one came to rescue them, they swam to where they could walk, and walked to the airport where they were sent to San Antonio, Texas, leaving everyone they knew and the only life that they had ever known, everything about her life changing forever.  Her family eventually settled in Galvaston, where she lost everything again when Hurricane Ike hit that city.

There were five or six or seven more tragedies like that, including contractor fraud, multiple thefts of  construction  equipment, and a leg amputation.  With that background, what she really wanted to talk about was how God put the right people in her life to help her and how grateful she was that we were building God's house for her to live in.

Last night, our program leader suggested that the most important thing we could do this week would be to listen to people's stories.  What a privilege to do just that.