Ridgewood SERVE

Work Site News: Today we finish up our work and get ready for a fun day tomorrow. The group put in a total of about 1700 hours of work in our community, and made a difference in many peoples lives. Some groups yesterday and today had some new work sites, including yard work for elderly people and going to a church under renovation in inner-city Paterson.

Burn baby burn: Last night's surrender service was extremely moving. We surrended our "old stinky clothes" and offered up sacrifices of our passions, spiritual gifts and selves to God. As we burned up paper representing these things, we watched the smoke rise to meet God.

Pool party : After hot and humid days, the storms came Wednesday, just in time for our night out at a local pool. It was dicey, but we decided to stay. Right after the pizza came, the rain stopped and we enjoyed a couple hours of beautiful evening weather for a swim. Then it rained again when we got home!

ENCOUNTERs Group : One of our small groups is an ENCOUNTERs site, which is built to interact with people on a deeper level than the typical work-driven SERVE sites. While originally planning to attend a camp for mentally and physically disabled kids all week, they have instead been involved with canvasing a community with a survey of needs, and running a Bible school at an inner city kids church.

Prayer Request : One girl (Laura Lynn) sliced the tip of her finger this morning pretty bad. While there was a lot of bleeding, ultimately she didn't need to go get stiches.

Tuesday night : On Tuesday night, we had some open time to hang out or play some sports. A good, sweaty time was had. During worship, Aaron talked about putting away the old sweaty clothes of sin and wearing new clothes. He threw darts at a picture, as he talked about hating people and how we want to hurt them, to get revenge. But he revealed a picture of Jesus underneath that...when we hurt our fellow man, we are throwing darts not at them but at Jesus.

First Day of Work Sites Complete: At worship Monday night, a lot of great stories were shared about the ways we saw God at our work sites. It was awesome to hear these testimonies!

Craziness: Monday night was the Amazing Race a scavenger hunt/relay race that the teens completed with their small groups. Building towers, solving puzzles, racing wagons and forming human body SERVE words were just a few of the crazy events that took place. We started worship Monday night with our southern medley of songs ("Oh When the Saints/This Train is Bound for Glory/Swing Low Sweet Chariot" ...all at the same time) and went into Days of Elijah. The place was hopping as we sang to God!

Photos will be up soon!

Small Groups and Worksites Find out what small group and what worksite your teen is working with.

Saturday Arrival Everyone arrived safe and on time on Saturday. We enjoyed many firsts: our first dinner together, our first worship and first small groups. We're all getting to know one another but already we see new friendships being formed.

Sunday's Bus Trip: We had a great worship service Sunday morning and then it was off to NYC! Everyone got to sit up on top of the open air double-decker buses and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of the city. We took a group photo at Battery Park with the Statue of Liberty in the background, only to have a tour boat pull up right behind us and block the view! We'll see how it turns out.

Monday Work Sites As we write, all the participants are at their first days of work. We'll write more soon.