The third day of Voices of Youth and again we woke to a beautiful day. It was not too hot or too cold and the sun was shining. Some of our youth woke up early and walked the campus finding the ducks and swans at the pond and enjoying the morning breeze. After breakfast, we headed towards the chapel for a morning devotion held by Jenny W.'s family group.
The devotion was very motivating and spiritually uplifting, it was a big benefit to use the chapel and stand in awe at the beautiful stained glass windows and come together as a group and pray for the strength, forgiveness, peace, healing and direction to do our best as we go down to Mississippi and begin our construction work. That devotion set the pace for the rest of the day. Everyone had an uplifted attitude and afterward, we went off to our first group building activity of the day. An obstacle course in which everyone in the team is blind-folded and the only one that can see has to call from across the field and let the team know what steps need to be taken.
The youth enjoyed watching each other have difficulties walking through the maze and stumbling on other people that formed the wall. It was easy to get confused while others called out to try and distract them from listening to their leader. This group building activity helped us to bond with the group, have faith and trust our fellow group members and listen to our leader who instructed us to avoid the obstacles in the way. After an entertaining game, we marched towards the rehearsal room for the first rehearsal of the day. We had a sectional just like the day prior and alternated between practice and mission education. During mission education we learned about how we can become a missionary through UMVIM (United Methodist Volunteers in Mission) and all the places they go to and all the things they do.
Then we all went to lunch. At lunch we discussed the reality of the "freshman 15," a college folk lore that claims that in the first year of college the average freshman gains 15 lbs seeing at how good the food and dorms at this college was some of us even considered applying to the school. After lunch, we all enjoyed some free time spent catching up on reading, playing ultimate frisbee or getting acquainted with new youth watching television or playing card games.
Then it was time for some health and safety tips. We learned about how to prevent dehydration, getting sun burned and generally staying safe in general. The information was given by Sandra Burks, A.K.A. "Mama Nurse." The information was presented with a slide show and ended with a video that not only showed us the importance of sun screen but also gave us a little bit of knowledge about life in general. Following the health and safety tips, we had a rehearsal with the entire group, which was very productive. We started practicing with new instruments such as violins, flutes, two trumpets, an alto recorder, tambourines, shakers/cabasas and even a djembe!
We had some family group time where we were able to unwind and enjoy the company of our "family" while on the tour. We went on to supper and afterwards were presented with an interesting surprise, Water Gun Fight!
We each were given a water gun and just ran around like kids squirting each other with water guns, some got fairly wet while others...got fully soaked with water. Unfortunately for Jordan, the youth decided to "baptize" him with the refilling water.
We had fun and although we were still wet, we kept playing more bonding games outside such as the Lava cross game in which we have to cross the side walk without touching the side walk and only use these cardboard squares provided for us. It was quite an experience trying to think outside of the box or in this case, outside the square.
We ended our group building activity with an intense form of freeze tag in which each individual was given a bandana of which they attached to their back pocket and then everyone had to go and take if from there, it was very exhilarating and was very fun.
After we were all hiped up we ended the night with a devotional held by Emma M.'s family group. It was presented in what some may consider "unusual" but overall we all enjoyed her puppet show that taught us to be united and make new friends by not confining yourself to a certain group. The day was overall very fullfilling, now we are all packing our bags, cleaning our rooms and getting ready for the adventure that is in store for us tomorrow.... a 7 hours bus drive down to Stone Mountain, GA!Till Tomorrow,
-David and Jordan, Voices of Youth Blogmasters
P.S. Check out this post and more information at our website: www.voicesofyouth-va.org
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