Sharing the Love

Tonight was the last Oddfellows Youth Group for the night, and so we had a larger turnout than usual. That could also be attributed to the fact that we were exchanging Secret Santa gifts tonight as well! I had to organise it and so I was a little afraid that someone would receive two presents, or one person would get nothing. I got people to pick names and record them on a list without me knowing, so I didn't have any idea who had who!

We also decided to do something a little different for youth group worship too. I came up with an idea to form a band a couple weeks ago, as I knew it would be Jireh's last youth group and Jireh and I have always discussed and dreamt of having a band at church. I thought it would be a great idea to surprise him! We only had one practice a couple days ago though, so we weren't the most prepared. I had also spent most of the morning looking for a Secret Santa present, so I hadn't properly prepared a message to go along with the songs I was leading.

I was on bass guitar, but since I didn't have one at home and the last time I had practised on one was the first time at Grace's house, borrowing her brother's guitar! I just had to make it up on the spot!

I think we went OK, although the rest of the youth group (if you knew Oddfellows you'd think it was typical!) didn't show much enthusiasm. We sang You Won't Relent by Misty Edwards and Our God is Greater by Christ Tomlin to start off with, and they didn't sing too loudly. I could hear some people singing along to our last song Power of Your Love though, probably since they should be quite familiar with that song by now!

After worship, we all sat in a circle on stage to receive our Secret Santa presents! Quite a few people got soft toys.

Tim got a Doraemon soft toy (his favourite!), while some got necklaces, t-shirts/dresses and vouchers. I got Playboy cologne! Thanks Jenny! Apparently she had originally bought this t-shirt from Jay-Jays for me, but then saw me wearing it at camp!

The person I had to buy for was Lisa. I ended up getting her some jewellery. What was funny was that originally I had Jenny, and she had me, but Lisa asked if she could be included in Secret Santa, and so I gave her Jenny while I took Lisa!

We then went around the circle, sharing what we were grateful for this year. I said that I was grateful for friends and Oddfellows as they've given me a life this year, especially with full-time work.

We then finished the night with a farewell to Jireh. Some of us shared stories about him and what we've enjoyed and appreciated, and Jireh left us with a few words of advice about how we all should make time for God.

We presented our farewell present to him - a collage of past and current Oddfellows group photos, a Rugby World Cup soft toy with signatures on it, and a farewell card made by his sister Joylynn.

It was a great way to end the night and what made it even better was seeing one of the old Oddfellows members Brendan come to visit. We haven't seen him in quite a while! It's good to see that he's well.

Photos courtesy of Tim Sze