Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills...

For some reason I have a lame song by the Spice Girls stuck in my head. It's not even one of their real songs, either, but the one from their movie Spice World, where they're performing on a variety show type of thing, singing "Come on, come on! Come on, come on! Come on, come on, come on!" and men in purple buttless unitards are dancing in the background.

Yikes. I don't know where it came from. Random songs in my head lately.

I just got back from yet another youth night. With once again, less people than last time. However, the three that went missing from last week have perfectly legitimate reasons and truly would have been there if they could. We play Lemonade Stand - which was a big hit. Each person has to squeeze an entire lemon into their mouths, a teaspoon of sugar and a mouthful of water, swish it around and spit it into a cup. Each person on the team does that until the first team with the full cup wins.

I then thought that I would have to pay one very brave person a lot of money to drink the "home made lemonade", but it turned out that we had to split it into 5 cups for some very willing people! haha But I also have to bring them prizes next week (though I'm certain they would have done it without the incentive). I must prepare for any backlash if even one of those children gets a cold this week. Ha. Oh well, they had fun.

We talked about changing the world a little at a time, and I spent a lot of time promoting the 40 Hour Famine which I'm sort of in charge of organizing (though we're still not sure who is really in charge, and no one will know until well into next week). I also let the kids know that the youth group has a sponsor child that we help out and let them know that each week we will be taking an offering for "Sarah from Uganda" - who really isn't a child at all. She's 19.

In a way, though, I feel bad by making this comparison, but it's like when you go to the shelter for a new pet and everyone wants the kittens and puppies, but not the dogs and cats that are close to full grown or even old. It's a great feeling to know that you're not just going for the young, cute ones, but giving the older ones a second chance at life. Sarah now has a grade 6 equivalent education and is continuing to improve. I'm excited for that.

I'm slightly discouraged, though, about the numbers. I KNOW that I shouldn't be playing the numbers game because every ministry leader has been told several times over that "if even one heart is touched in that room, it makes it ALL worth it" and that there should never be any comments of "only" 9 kids or something. Because each kid there is worth every moment. I just am frustrated that the senior aged kids were looking forward to having a youth person in town who could help them out and give them stuff to do, and now they don't even show up.

I suppose a Friday night program, however, does have a lot of other inticing activities to compete with.

So it's settled - the junior high program, "The Edge" is taking over Friday nights and "Fusion" will be bumped to Saturdays. I think it's funny that I've always thought I thrived on senior high kids, and that I do best with them. But I've come to discover that junior high boys, though hyper and very talkative sometimes, are really much more gung-ho about everything than any other age group. They're really excited to show up to youth.

I have to try not to give up on the seniors already. I have to, actually, remember to not give up at all. It's difficult, though, this discouragement. It very easily eats away at you, harvesting bitterness and worry.

But I'm honestly doing fairly well. Today I helped out with the college (high school) career day for the 15-16 year olds. I presented some typical job interview questions to the class and had a pretty good response. I also was an example interview conducted by a panel of students - they were interviewing me for a rocket scientist position and I was to be the interview to "not do". Ha. I had fun with it. Not only did the whole class laugh and get a good kick out of my absolute obnoxiousness (and sporadic laughter - I'm certainly not an actor), but they also did observe well and learned something from it. I also enjoyed giving my list of "skills and qualifications" for the position, including:
"Numchuck skills"
"Bow hunting skills"
"Computer hacking skills"
I think the class enjoyed it too - particularly one of my interviewers.

A lot of the kids, when I went out for lunch with a group of them (but other groups were hanging around) came to talk to me or tell me that they enjoyed the presentation. So I got in a little bit with them and I think it'll be a good start for hanging out and getting to know them and see what I can do to help them.

Anyways, thats my summary for the past while. Tomorrow I'm supposed to be going to Riverton for a youth speaker thing, but I think I might stay home. I feel bad, but I do have to clean my room and get this stupid book report done before my midterm exam comes in the mail in a matter of days. I also have to get started on my next newsletter that you'll all be getting at the end of the month, too. Plus, I'm really not into being a passenger in a car for more than 30 minutes right now. It makes me really uncomfortable/sick. Not fun. I have to learn how to say no, and I think tomorrow is going to be practice time.

Well, bedtime now. Ni-night.