Today was our last full day of orientation! It seems absolutely crazy that we are less than 24 hours away from leaving Powell, Ohio and starting on our tours. This week the students have learned 10 choir songs, met 89 fellow high school students, 12 HILARIOUS and awesome leaders, choreographed more puppet and clown songs than we can count, practiced 6 pantomimes and made a plethora of props and signs. Not to mention daily teaching times, team meetings and activities, daily devotions, opportunities to clean the church, participation in neighborhood ministries, and mixing with Columbus area youth groups. They have memorized Scripture, studied how to share the Gospel, shared their testimony and prepared sermons and children’s stories. What a crazy week!! No wonder we are all so tired!
This morning we woke up to an insane thunder and lighting storm. Lightning flashed through the windows of our sleeping rooms and the boom of the thunder served as our alarm clock. It definitely made for quite a memorable trip to the showers as the rain was literally pouring from the sky by the buckets. There really was no point in drying off before getting dressed because in the three seconds it took to dash the 15 feet from the school door to the bus, we were just as wet as we were in the shower. Thank goodness God has provided a group of flexible and understanding students! They were champs!
Today was monumental for many of our students as it was laundry day here at ob orientation. A good number of the students had never done a load of laundry before…so we had a teaching time on the ABC’s of washing clothes and then had hands on experience at the Laundromat. If you’ve ever wondered how long it would take to wash a weeks worth of clothes for 30 people…it’s about a three hour process involving 15 people and countless rows of washers and dryers. Unfortunately, Laundromat’s often have sub-par dryers…so we currently have clothes hanging up all over our sleeping rooms. But that’s OK, because on ob… “We love everything!” The students were paired up with a laundry partner for the summer…each laundry day, the pairs will switch off on laundry duty. While half of the students were doing laundry today, the rest stayed at the church diligently working on final three-group preparations. There are still many signs to be made and songs to practice!! In fact, some students even took projects to the Laundromat to work on!
The majority of today was set aside to finish last minute preparations for our summer programs. We sang all of our choir songs, practiced our speech choir and ran around like crazy people perfecting skits, puppet songs, clown dances and pantomimes. Things are coming together quite nicely and the students are doing an AMAZING job learning all of this stuff! It was insanely hectic around here today…songs pouring out of every room, students sprawled out in the hallways memorizing lines, dances being choreographed in every corner and puppets being thrown in the air. Insane? Yes. Fun? ABSOLUTELY! Tomorrow each three group will perform all of their stuff for their entire team…so the pressure is on to finish strong!!
For dinner tonight, each team had special activities planned…of course, the students had no idea where they were going when they got on their respective buses…which made things all the more fun! Keystone and Tri-State both went out for dinner and then made a much needed and anticipated run to Wal-Mart. It’s sort of funny how much these students LOVE going to Wal-Mart! Their energetic reaction to the announcement always makes it seem like it’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to them! Team Central had dinner on $2.00 tonight…only with a twist. Not to be outdone by Tri-States efforts yesterday, the Team Central leaders gave each student $0.99 to spend on their dinner and 15 minutes in the grocery store to buy supplies. The result? Spaghetti that was loving cooked by the guys and served to the girls. AND…they paid for dinner and dessert for 30 people for only $22.00. Way to go Team Central! You are the best! (The writer of this blog might be a little biased. True story.)
Being the last night of Orientation, we concluded our evening with a time of worship, prayer and communion. It was a neat time of reflection on what Jesus did for us on the cross and what we have learned this week. Lives have been changed in the past seven days and we are excited to see the students broken and eager to be refined for the glory of their Savior.
Tomorrow will be another jam packed and fun filled day for both students and leaders. We have MUCH to finish and clean and pack before heading off to Ashland, Ohio to get ready for our first Sunday morning program! We are excited and exhausted…but majorly looking forward to getting this show on the road. We pray that God will give us strength and energy to finish the tasks that lie before us tomorrow…and to end Orientation strong. We pray that each of the three teams will have a safe trip to Ashland and that we will be effective in ministry with the Ashland church.
This has been an incredible week…a fabulous start to what it sure to be a remarkable summer. A HUGE thank you goes out to the Powell church congregation for their generous hospitality this week! It will be with gracious hearts that we leave what we have called home and embark on our tours tomorrow evening. We can not thank you enough, Grace Church, Powell!
For the last time…Goodnight, from Powell, Ohio!
