Hello and welcome to our Day 3 edition! Honestly it feels like middle of the week already. It's Monday!! Today was our first day of Play Days. Today we met with David (team lead), Sydney (summer student), Elena (summer student). They are the leads for the play days this year!
We started our day early, leaving the Cove around 7:30am. Breakfast was set for 8am. Simple breakfast for toast, bagels, cream cheese. David led our devotional and reminded us about how important it is to read the Bible each day. We might do this in different ways and at different times, but to hear from God daily, and to be reminded of his guidance daily is so important.
Today was to be Play Days at Academy - this is a housing complex on Academy Rd. We usually setup right next to the playground and run our activities in a fairly small area. Academy spreads out quite a bit so we were told that we will put up signage around the entire neighbourhood.
They planned to do different carnival games than had been done earlier in July. Our job in the morning was to prepare for the games, prepare for our skit/bible story at the end and prepare the balloon animals (butterflies) we would hand out at the end.
So many fun things happened in the morning. The team is getting along really well. Lots of laughs and ideas. From harmonizing "Ba-na-na" to laughing about different parts of our skit. Lots of great ideas for everyone!
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| Our caterpillar team! |
I noticed today, that even though there are not events happening at 138 May St, Northwind's side for programs like Next Steps, and the Gathering, people would still come by to see if there was support available. Unfortunately, we have to turn them away as there are no programs in the office on Monday. Next Steps runs Tues-Thurs.
So for the week, the games were ring toss (try to get the ring on the pegs), castle crash (knock down the cups stacked using balls), fishing pond (try to hook the floating fishies!) , face painting, sponge toss (throw a wet sponge at the person standing behind the wall - there's a hole in the wall for their face!!), zipline activities (inflated balloons on large straws to race when the air is let out), photo booth (bring your own phone!), along with snow cones and hot dogs.
I felt that the complex was much busier this year! We likely had over 40 children come out to play for about 2 hours! They registered with Northwind and played the games at no cost, winning small prizes along the way. Many parents asked about supports, schedules for when Northwind runs programs and also how to get social services. I noticed the kids and families were all very supportive of one another. They'd help each other out where they could. They waited their turns and played nicely at the games and with one another.
Before we began, we first tried to clean up the area from trash. Making sure the area was safe and there were not things like discarded needles or glass. Garbage was picked up at the start and throughout the event. Incredibly one older gentleman would walk around picking up garbage throughout the event for the community! He just went about with a reacher and a bag and picked up garbage that he found.
The diversity in the community is also changing. Yes we had people of First Nations descent, but also others including from Chinese and others from South-east asia. More people have immigrated to Thunder Bay - but they are also in need of support.
The play day was very well attended. We are glad for that but I also wonder about how many more people with children are needing support.
At the end of the event we did some raffle draws and then shared the Bible passage on Romans 12:1-2. Talking about how God transforms us - just like the way a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. This is how the First Nations version of the new testament talks about it. So with this in mind we did a little skit where caterpillars were bullying other caterpillars. Some butterflies came along and it didn't bother them that those caterpillars were trying to bully them too. They spoke to the bullied caterpillars and brought them to the farmer (God) who would show them that that is not something that should matter to them and not to be influenced or to conform to their ways. The caterpillars then cocooned and transformed into butterflies! They then shared this good news with the bully caterpillars who chose then to go to God. A simplification of the story but wanted to share with children there that God can do so much more than we think - if we will trust him and listen to him.
Asking people how they felt today went and overall they were happy, it went well and while many did not know what to expect, things were smooth! People were tired however; on a 1-5 scale, many were a 3, some were even a 1 or a 2. So after a yummy dinner, prepared by our cook Demerai, we headed back to the Cove to settle in for the evening.
This then involved a light hike around the property before coming into journal, and get ready for sleep.
I am excited to see what tomorrow brings. Our 2nd complex is Limberick. I'm curious to see changes there from the years past. Take a look at the blogs from the last few years and you'll get a sense of what I'm thinking
For now, thanks for following along and keep praying for our sharing of the play days, showing positive ways to interact and play and to introduce people to Northwind and their supports, all done because God cares for us.
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