Summer Mission Project Bake Sale

In December, our Summer Mission Project team (along with the terrific help and support of many more of our youth) hosted its first fundraising effort for our trip to Washington, D.C. in June.  The bake sale was a *complete* success!  The congregation was generous in donating baked goods for the "free will donation," and even more generous in its financial support. 

Wow!!!!  We, the Summer Mission Project team, are feeling incredibly lucky and blessed by the support and encouragement so clearly demonstrated in the bake sale.

Many, many thanks to each and every one of you who made this event such a success!

Paul (one of our advisors on the trip), hard at work!

4 out of 6 of our awesome SMP team youth!! 

Youth Group Christmas Dinner

A "wintry snow event" forced us to postpone the much-anticipated Christmas dinner at Anne's house, but when we were finally able to gather, the evening proved to be lovely and jolly.  We began the evening with a little "sing off" of sorts.  Working in two teams, each group came up with as many Christmas carols as possible and jotted them down on a piece of paper.  After the allotted time was up, the two groups met again and took turns singing the first line of a song from their sheet.  If the other team had the same song, neither team got credit.  The team with the most points at the end was declared the winner - and got to help themselves to dinner first.  

TEAM A:

TEAM A+ (the winning team):

We enjoyed a meal of lasagna, salad, and bread....

And after dinner, we gathered in front of the cozy fire to watch this sweet sweet video:

Click here!

(Later, someone sent me this "full version" story, also beautifully and wonderfully told...)

We listened to the story of Jesus' birth from the Gospel of Luke, and we talked about what it means to shine our light into dark places during this season of literal - and, for many - figurative darkness.  Following some good discussion and sharing, we sang happy birthday to the baby Jesus and enjoyed some cake.  (In case you were wondering or didn't know this about the Baby Jesus, his favorite kind of cake happens to be yellow with chocolate frosting.)

Our time together ended too soon, as good times often do. 

A Very Merry Christmas, indeed!