the LightHouse: Te Anau Youth Centre

Well I'm finally back onto blogging now that things have settled down just a little bit! Sorry for not having updated everyone on the youth centre lately - though there are some pictures that say it all in my photo album over there. Wow what a HUGE change!

Everything is officially open and the kids are coming to the centre 4 days a week - Wednesday through Saturday just for a couple hours after school (and 1-5 on Saturdays). The reason for this is that we don't have anyone else to watch the place except me so we can't be open as often as we'd like. If this were a 40 hour job, I would easily be able to open it up twice as long but alas, we have to either rely on a lot of volunteers who I can trust to run the place without me being here, or we have to revise my salary. Oh well - the kids that come enjoy it. There are a steady 10 or so kids that always come after school, and another 5-10 drop in every so often.

We have spent over 1000 hours worth of man power in this building, mostly between me, Iain and Belinda...two others from the Prezzy church that I'm fairly close with. Iain always brings along his baby, Scarlett, and she runs around my office looking for the bickies I bought her (bickies = biscuits = cookies). She comes in and her way of always asking for something is pointing and saying "Yup!"...so she goes straight into the shelf that has the bickies, picks up the bag and runs to find me going "Yeee-up! Yeee-up!"...she's adorable.

Kate has seen her on webcam and has decided she is going to call her Skiwi. I think it's supposed to be a mix of Scarlett and Kiwi...ha. Scarlett's brothers think the name's cute.

Anyways...yeah so we've spent a lot of time here and there are times when I walk into the centre, sigh with exhasperation and want to turn around and leave because I've spent so much time in here before the youth even got here. But it's really paid off! It looks great and we're looking forward to getting a few more things to put in here. Right now it's a little bare but we're getting a Coke machine within 2 weeks. We're also getting at least one computer right away, another one within probably a month, and then likely 3 others sometimes as well. So we should have as many as 5 computers in here for kids to use for school stuff, research, etc.

We're also applying for funding for a big screen tv from Pub Charities. I'm not sure if that means that pubs are giving money to this - Karl's the finance man so he's doing all that stuff. I hope he's getting quotes for BIG tv's to give to these people. Yay. We also have a Playstation 2 for the kids to use as well as 8 appropriate games. We've taken 4 away because they're overly violent or are shooting games. Even as a secular organization, we shouldn't be condoning violence.

So yeah - we're also getting a computer desk and microwave today. Yay, I can start bringing leftovers to work and heat them up for lunch rather than going back and forth from here all the time.

Some of the rooms are really cheesy and retro or overly colourful - and that's thanks to the paint we were given. We didn't have much choice in what to paint the place but I think the only somewhat ugly room would be the kitchen, which is a terrible peach colour with blue cupboards and shelves. haha...but it kinda looks like orange if you don't turn the light on!

We're having a few problem kids coming in and it's a little draining, but it seems that I have a much higher patience level for useless noise and rambunctiousness (is that how you spell it?) than I thought. Parents have come in to see the place and they get annoyed with the yelling, the obnoxious laughter, and yes, even the armpit farts. But I really don't have an issue with it. Maybe working at CYPRES that summer really did a good thing for my patience level...hehe. It's when they get disrespectful and overbearing or thinking they own the place that I put them in THEIR place. haha.

So that's my story about the youth centre.