Baptisms and Battles

We had two major events happen at church recently:

 

Stephanie's Baptism

 

Stephanie, this girl in our youth group was to get baptised along with her dad at church on Father's Day (first Sunday of September...almost a month ago!). This of course is a big thing for Christians (or so I'm told!), and so when I first found out a few months prior to her baptism I thought it'd be a good idea to do something special for her! I had seen some of the other youth groups support their fellow youth group members in past baptisms and so thought it'd be really cool to show Stephanie just how much we support and love her (in the good way)! The only problem was...I had absolutely no idea what people are supposed to give people for baptisms!

I called for any donations from people in the youth group and got quite a few generous donations from a few, which was more than enough to buy something for Stephanie! I tried texting a few people for some ideas but didn't get any replies, so I went with my mum and Aonghas to a few Christian shops to have a look, and we ended up buying her this calendar thing as well as a cross necklace.

 

Fortunately Stephanie and her sister Vanisa didn't show up to youth group the Friday night before her baptism service and so we were all able to sign the card without having to look over our shoulder!

 

Sunday morning was the big day! The church was twice as full as usual and I sat all the way in the back with Jireh. We were trying to organise what 'spontaneous' act all of us in our youth group should do when Stephanie receives her certificate. Gabrielle and Jenny were going to present Stephanie with her present on behalf of the youth group, but we couldn't see Jenny, so Jireh tried ringing her up just as the service started and we got a terse text message from her! It turns out she was already in the service when we tried ringing her!

 

After the sermon, Stephanie and her dad were the first few people to get baptised, and so Aonghas and I dashed to the front to film and take photos.

 

As soon as they were baptised, I went out back to Jireh and we started sorting out our 'spontaneous' act. We were planning on doing a Mexican wave, similar to the one we did at Epsom Girls Grammar's music evening (except that one failed with a measly two people). Time was running out as all the people who got baptised went up on stage to get their certificates and I had to go back to take some more photos.

 

As Stephanie came up on stage though, there was loud applause and a Mexican wave of sorts travelling along the back of the hall! Well done guys!

 

We didn't end up giving our present to her at the service but gave it to her afterwards when we took heaps of photos with her. I also caught up with my pharmacy friend Hannah after the service, even though it was really brief!

 

Congratulations Stephanie on getting baptised!!!

 

The Combined English Youth Fellowship

 

A couple weeks later on the 18th, it was our inaugural combined English Youth Fellowship evening, where our Oddfellows youth group got together with the City Church's Livng Water Fellowship to play some games and get to know each other better.

 

Because no one else volunteered, Jireh and I took it upon oureselves to organise the games for the evening, as the other fellowship would be in charge of worship. We were having trouble coming up with games though, and we really only finalised it on the day!

 

We showed up early and there was hardly anyone there...not a good sign! The people all started to trickle in though, with the city churchers all coming in one big lot!

 

They first led worship, in which they sang a few songs. None of us seemed to know any of their songs, but that's OK! We were interrupted by a fire alarm, but after that we kept going.

 

It was then time for the games! The first game I had planned for them was the name game, where everyone stands in a circle, and we go around the circle saying our name and an adjective preceding it with the first letter being the same as the first letter of our name, such as...

 

"Hi my name is constipated Calum!"

 

The next person would have to say 'hi' to everyone before them before introducing themselves. Unfortunately not everything goes according to plan! After a little confusion from a last minute game change, I picked someone to start, but they were too shy and spoke really quietly. The next person couldn't hear and things started to unrabble. I ended up just getting everyone to introduce themselves!

 

We then got everyone into four teams (which should've been six - I didn't realise the teams would be so large!), and got them to play a few games where they had to arrange themselves in order of various things like height, hand size, etc. 

 

The next game was when we gave each team four sheets of newspaper and told them they had to get all their team members from one side of the hall to the other without touching the ground. We played it a few times but then teams started cheating by ripping up the newspapers into little pieces and everyone just shuffling across to the other side of the room! FAILED

 

OK well at least the last game went well -  the Oddfellows vs Living Water challenge! Aonghas made a cup to give the winninng team, even if it was just a cheap cup bought from a discount store, and spray-painted silver (it still smells!). The game called 'Tunnel Ball' involved each team standing in a line with their legs apart, and the person at front rolling the ball back along through the tunnel to the last person who then ran to the front and carried on. It was quite close but...Oddfellows won! :D

 

Supper was a segregated affair, with the Oddfellows hanging amongst themselves and the Living Water people playing basketball by themselves. I caught up with Hannah which was cool. You could kinda see the contrast between the two youth groups - theirs is more outgoing while ours was a little quieter and reserved! Maybe that's why we're called ODDfellows!

 

There was also this new girl who I saw standing along by the doorway. I thought I'd try make conversation with her, which didn't get too far but I suppose at least I gave it a go!

 

Hopefully we haven't scared the other fellowship away though, and that we get together a bit more often and get to know each other well!