Glue Finale Banquet

It is finished.

Last night was my final time with the students as their youth leader. We invited a few adults who had helped out with events over the past few years, all the students who currently attend a few of the students who have attended in the past. We had a total of 32 people who came for the evening. The evening had been planned by a committee of current students. We wanted it to be special, so we set up the tables nicely for a special banquet feel.

We started off the evening with a few games. The first one was a baby-food eating relay. By the end, I think the participants were feeling pretty sorry for the babies of the world. :-)
We also had a ginger-bread making contest--or should I say "no contest"? One of the houses collapsed early on in the game.

After a game of Glue trivia, we ate tons of pizza and salad and watched a special slideshow of pictures from the last three years.

First we gave the students an opportunity to share favorite memories and ways that our group had impacted them. What an encouragement it was to me to hear how God has let us play a role in bringing people to him and helping them mature in their faith!

After that, each leader had the opportunity to share some "last words"--the things that we wanted the kids to walk away with. Unfortunately, at this point a group of four or five students began to be distracting and disrespectful. This ended in a showdown between one of the adult leaders and a girl who refused to comply that only was diffused when I interrupted my sharing to offer to call the parent to come pick up the girl and her friends. That kind of ruined the night for me. I don't really even remember what I said afterward--it's hard to come back from an interruption like that. I feel like the rudeness of a small group of kids ruined the culmination of three years of building relationships--their behavior robbed me of the chance to really say goodbye. I'm aware that I'm probably being melodramatic, but that's honestly how I'm feeling right now. I'm not sure why God let those girls come last night, but I pray that it was because he will use it for good in their lives, and not let their actions taint the memories of the majority of the kids who were hurting and listening and saying their goodbyes.

We finished the evening with a time of worship together, singing songs offering our lives up to God to go where he leads us and do what he asks us. After a group picture, we allowed the kids to take photos that we had used to decorate the youth room, and I gave them all a contact card with my new email address that I will be switching to shortly and my phone number.
That was the night. Afterward, I was exhausted (I haven't been sleeping well) and a group of leaders and two students stayed to help take things down. I cleared stuff out of the youth room that belonged to me, and cleaned my stuff out of the church office. Nikki and I took one last visit together to the church baptismal--where we used to sit and talk growing up. And then we left the church that had been like home and like family to me for 25 years, eleven months and two days.

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If you'd like to see more pics of the evening, check out my photo site at www.picasaweb.google.com/trushoe.