Merry Chistmas!

I hope everyone had a very blessed and merry Christmas. The Baker family had a hectic, but incredibly fun and enjoyable Christmas. My parents were able to come out from Iowa, and despite the requisite Baker family plane troubles (3-4 hour delays each way), they had a safe and fun trip. This was really the first Christmas Annalysa could comprehend, and she really enjoyed opening presents and discovering her new toys. In fact, she still keeps checking the tree in case new gifts have miraculously appeared. We had fun with my parents, and were able to meet my cousin Pete in Beaver Dam for lunch. All in all, a great Christmas. Now if only we could start having some good weather (I love that even when we get good weather it serves a negative purpose, like today's warmth, which melted the snow so it could turn to ice). Oh, and for your info, you will notice we are updating the schedules for both groups for Winter/Spring to the right. The official version will be going out soon, but for you awesome blog readers you get it a little early.

Snow, again. yeah.

There will be no youth group tonight as all church activities have been cancelled for the day due to weather. As bad as last winter was this year is almost shaping up to be worse. Hopefully this all means spring will start in February right?

We will be moving our HS Christmas Party to our next youth group meeting in January. Same things apply: dress to be outside and bring $3 to defray our food costs. I wish we could do it tonight, but A) we probably wouldn't have been able to play murder the snowman and B) it's probably not a good idea to have you all on the road at night with all the drifting. We'll make it up to you in January and at Silver Birch, I promise.

If you look to the right you'll notice we have a bunch of pictures from our middle school Christmas Party up. It was an incredibly fun night, just as it has been an incredible year getting to work with these students. They are really fun, energetic, have great attitudes, and have been so eager and open to listening to God throughout the fall.

I hope everyone stays warm and safe today and hopefully I will see most of you on Christmas Eve and Christmas day at church. I will be preaching delivering the message "The Making of a Christmas Story" at HRC on Christmas and hope to see you there to wish you all a very blessed Christmas.

Silver Birch Info

You all should be receiving this via church box or at school, but here it is for those who always lose such items.

Departure/Arrival times: Meet at the Hingham Reformed Church parking lot at 5:00pm on Friday, January 9^th. We will return to the parking lot at 3:00pm on Sunday, January 11^th.

What to Bring:

Sleeping Bag
Warm clothes (layering is always wise). Cabins and common areas are heated, but we will be outside A LOT.
Clothes for snow activities (heavy winter coat, snow pants, gloves, hat, etc.)
Snow boots
2 pairs of socks per day
Bath towel
Bible and pen/pencil
Garbage/plastic bag to put wet clothes in
Shower supplies, tooth paste, and other hygiene stuff
Deodorant (consider this the most required item of all, especially for middle school boys).
Money for one fast food meal (on way home)

Optional:

Spending money for snacks

Camera (we prefer disposable and are not responsible for broken or lost digital cameras. Our staff will be taking pictures that will be available online).

Snacks, as long as you a) bring enough for your entire cabin (12 people) and b) take full responsibility for any mess.

What not to bring

Electronic devices (IPods, DVD players, video games, etc.)

Drinks of any kind, no exceptions. Drinks are available for purchase at the camp, and water fountains are available.

Medications:

Any prescription medications you have need to be checked in to Pastor Andy before we leave. Medication must be in a Ziploc bag with your name on it and should have the original prescription sticker with it (this is for legal reasons). Non-prescription medications (ex. Tylenol) should also be in a Ziploc bag with instructions on when, why, and how to use. Please arrive a little before 5:00 to check in medicines.

Meals: Silver Birch will provide 4 meals over the weekend. We will stop in Green Bay for lunch on the way home, and that meal will be on your own. Middle schoolers will be going to McDonalds and high schoolers to Fazoli’s.

Packing: We have nearly 70 people attending this trip, and we need to fit all of them and their luggage onto two school buses. Everyone is allowed a bus carry-on and ONE suitcase/duffle bag, preferably with your sleeping bag and pillow in it (although they may be separate).

I am so excited that so many of you are attending this trip and cannot wait for all the exciting things we have planned. If anyone has any questions feel free to contact me anytime. Have a wonderful break and see you January 9^th!

Party Week

First, thanks to all our high schoolers for being timely and listening well to Rep. LeMahieu last night. I know we're not used to spending that much time listening to a speaker in this group, but I thought he made some terrific points on how we need to live out our faith in the world. I really agree with his idea that we need to make a committment to God, we need to let others know we are Christians by our words and deeds, and we need to live out a Christian life daily. Being a political geek I enjoyed him talking about legistlation he has worked on, and like the rest of you learning about Wisconsin having the nation's #5 nude beach was certainly a combination of interesting and disturbing (especially since it is in a STATE PARK). To learn more about the beach and protest to it you can go to this article: http://www.nbc15.com/home/misc/8363502.html

The Parties
We want to thank both our groups for a great year with our Christmas parties this week. MS will be Wednesday night from 7-8:30. We will meet and return to the church. You do not need to bring anything. High school will be from 5:30-7:30 Sunday. Please dress to play a game in the snow (pending weather) and $3 to help defray our food costs (food provided by Theo's and Greg's). Hope everyone can make it

Have a great and blessed week!

Hot stove...

Just some Friday morning musings...

Just a thought, but are the Brewers going to field a team this year of just send them all to REAL teams? Sabathia does look pretty good in pinstripes... Sadly, the Cubbies have not done nearly enough so far, with the Peavy deal breakdown being quite sad.

Picasa (my photo program) has been dumb lately, but it finally got our MS party pictures up. You can find them to the right.

This Sunday we've got a couple of special things planned. All high schoolers will be attending a special program entitled The Star of Bethlehem in lieu of normal Sunday school. This is based on a DVD that shows one man's obsession to prove that the star occurred as the Bible says it did, and his research unearthed so much evidence that even NASA's head of planetary discovery sees some real merit in it. Then Sunday night our HS group welcomes Rep. Dan LeMahieu as our speaker. Dan will talk about how he serves in the legislature as a Christian, and address some of the issues (i.e. homosexuality, disability, abortion, and prejudice) we have been talking about lately. Please respect Rep. LeMahieu and arrive at 5:25 so we may begin at 5:30.

Wednesday night was another enjoyable Middle School evening. We played some games that had everyone roaring, and by plan to embarrass Cody and Jordan backfired horrifically (instead of drawing one of the 12 slips that would have made them do something embarrassing, they pulled the one that earned them a free soda, and those two NEVER need soda). We also had some good conversations on the importance of studying scripture. We laugh at the notion of an auto mechanic who has never even seen a car, yet I think too many of us are a Christian in the same way. It says Christian on our name tag, but have we really seen God through the Bible, learned what he tells us there, and started living our life according to it? If we are going to follow God then we need to read the manual, which is really way more then that. It's an amazing love note to us, telling us how important we are and what God wants to do in our life to make it simply amazing for us and others today, tomorrow, and for eternity.

Crazy Weekend!

We had a nice and wacky weekend in youth ministry land. It started Friday night with the middle schoolers setting up for the Breakfast buffet, followed by many of them (about 22) heading over to our house to party. While it was absolutely a nut house (and hahaha to those of you thinking "well its always a nut house because you live there Andy") we had a great time playing air hockey, basketball, Foosball, Wii on our new big screen, eating food, and acting in all sort of crazy ways. You can checkout the photo gallery to the side.
Saturday was our annual breakfast buffet fundraiser. Shockingly, our students worked really hard, and they had to, because we had a simply amazing turnout. From all accounts definitely bigger then the last two years, and it showed in terms of money. We brought in right around $2,000, which is fantastic. Thanks to everyone who donated items, worked, attended, and attended the breakfast.
High School spent their night Sunday playing Hinghamopoly and dodgeball. We also continued our Untouchables series by talking about Prejudice.

Hinghamopoly Night

Every once and awhile a]I bite off a tad more then I can chew for a night of youth group, and Hinghamopoly kinda turned out to be that sort of project. We had three giant game boards set-up down stairs, with each place on a monopoly board being replaced with a place in Hingham. I thought it might be a couple of hour project, but when your creating every place on the board, money, hotels, etc. for three giant game boards it turns into a monster project. The students seemed to think it was pretty to cool to own Hingham places, especially the really cool ones like THE Soda Machine, Old Man's House, and The Old Mill. While it was a pain to get everything set-up it's done now, so it will be really easy to play again, and with how much the students loved it we'll certainly drag it bag out. Big thanks to Mary Lynn, Kenzie, and Dani for spending their afternoons helping get everything set-up and making it all look great.

The message for the night was on money and tithing. We dangled $110 in cold hard cash in the students' face, which certainly got them hyped up (some of them a little too much as they chased me all over the building trying to get it later). We then talked about how the world tries to tell us one thing about money (that it makes us powerful, happy, and is all important) while the Bible tells us quite another (that God gives power, we find happiness apart from money, and that the most important thing is God's love). We then talked about giving to God, that we give to God because it is really His money in the first place, and we want it to be used for His purpose. We closed with a story of generous giving that we've seen in our ministry lately. With the downturn in the economy we have a lot of students who cannot afford our winter retreat this year. Therefore we've been praying for some people to come forward and help us out. This past week I've gotten letters from people saying they are so THANKFUL to GIVE US MONEY for this trip. Can you believe that? People not only willingly giving hundreds of dollars, but literally thanking us for taking their money? These are people who have the right view on money and giving. If we've been blessed with money then we should be ready to give it back to God to be used in great ways.