If you can dodge a ball...

So - I gotta admit - I felt a little like Billy Madison (you know that Adam Sandler movie where he's a 20 year old going back to elementary school??) when we played Dodgeball at Old School Night with the Junior Highs.

We had so much fun playing crazy games - from our ice-infested frozen tag to our massive games of jacks - it was pretty rad.

But I gotta say - the highlight of the evening was seeing a row of 10 of you all moving to the DDR - yeah that's right, we had a little Dance Dance Revolution party too! Mind you, Wes and I totally ruined the mood when we set foot on the dance mats...yeah...we're not so hot at the DDR - maybe this week at staff meeting I can convince Pastor Steve to get us all a DDR so we can practice. Hahaha

Paintball is our next event - gonna be HUGE!!!

We're also still rocking and rolling at CRAVE - a couple more of em here at the church, and then on May 30th we party it up at Esquimalt Lagoon, the CRAVE Beach Party. It's become an annual event where we reflect on the past year and just have a good time hanging out and roasting marshmallows and such.

Feel free to dive into the ocean too. But trust me, BenBad, Frick and I went swimming last week (with wetsuits) and it was pretty cold (and I almost got rescued by a whaling boat cause I was waving at em).

So. Come to CRAVE on May 30th and go for a swim. I dare you.

-nick

When Badke's Attack

Ok - so Jim Badke, leader of the KALEO program and CIT program at Camp Qwanoes, stopped by to pick up Ben Badke(one of our lovely youth leaders - and also his son! crazy eh? Yeah...maybe the last name tipped you off...).

Anyways - Jim has always been quite the prankster and he noticed Wes was away and there just happened to be all this newspaper in his office....sooooooo

Yeah. Jim went crazy.

It's all his fault!!!

Trust me Wes - I had nothing to do with it!! Neither did Jason or Ben! None of us ran around town and gathered papers and then attacked your office with ninja-like precision. It was all Jim.

And his family helped too! (not Ben though. Like me and Jason, he also respects Wes' privacy)

hmmm. have I blown what cover I may have had???

-nick

Stupid Polar Bears....

Ok. So I admit it. There were NO polar bear statues left in Victoria. For those of you who partied on Friday night with us as we searched the city for the ellusive polar bear statue, I appologize.

But, we did have fun with the very first Gnome Patrol. With our new friends Thor, Olaf, Lars and Buddy (our faithful gnomes of course!) we scavenged around Victoria looking for funny pictures with our gnomes. Whether is be gnomes at Starbucks, gnomes with the old folks (and no, I don't mean pastor Steve!) or gnomes with dogs! It was a crazy time for sure - and maybe next time we'll find that polar bear statue...

So coming up we have our BATTLE OF THE BANDS - gonna be a rad time! If you have a band or your friend has a band, get em to contact Wes (email him at engageyouth@hotmail.com). The whole night is gonna be chock full of prizes and proceeds will be going towards social justice (stuff like homelessness) in Victoria. $10 for a ticket, or $5 and 2 cans of food.

Oh, and hey I filled up Graham Frick's bathroom with balloons last night. He gets home Monday. hahahahahaha

-nick the viking

Playing with Swords

Well well well, it loks like we're gonig to be going full-on ninja style for this week's game, the Last Samurai - oh man - its gonna be awesome. It's one of those wide games where you're sneaking around trying to gain your ninja skills, then outsmart the evil yokozuna once you've collected your super duper ninja sword (and no we're not giving you real swords...these one are dulled. hahaha)



Hope the semester is wrapping up good for you guys, I've actually just started taking some courses through Trinity Western - it's all online so that's pretty cool- but I've been busy away with quizes and tests and reading, it's intense! So I know how you guy are feeling with exams and all.
Oh and the ski trip is gonna be RAD!!! Oh yeah I am SO excited. We're gonna party up in Campbell River at LiftOff, full on rock show Qwanoes style, and I think we're having a pool party too!
So stoked.

Remember, check out our crave myspace (don't know what myspace is?? it's pretty much a friend-connecting type website, pretty sweet) it's at myspace.com/crave_engage
oh and make your visit to myspace complete by checking out my new favorite band, they're called Radiant Citylights -> myspace.com/radiantcitylights

-nick the viking

Busy January

So, yes this is going to be a busy week! Crave tomorrow, Junior High Skate on friday, House Party Saturday.... wow! Bring friends! We're kicking things off BIG TIME for 2007! We haven't lost steam as we look forward to the Annual Ski Weekend coming up in February. Remember to sign up and stuff or else we won't know if you're coming! eh?! Deadline to sign up is Janaury 21st. Try asking some friends to enjoy this great weekend away!

Also stay tuned for QUEST and THE LAST SAMURAI at the end of the month. Also checkout our all new "Crave MySpace" that you can find at http://www.myspace.com/crave_engage

That's it for now. hope to see you all soon!

-WUNIT-

Party Hardy

Yo - Nick here - just checking in after quite the weekend!

I think it's a safe assessment to say Christmas parties went off great eh? In fact, I am going to be so bold as to say they fully rocked. From the crazy Christmas tree tosses and gingerbread mania on Friday night to a wonderful chocolate fountain and super-slow trivia on Saturday, I think we all had a most excellent time.



I'm really excited about CRAVE this week - it's pretty much our last official CRAVE of 2006 - how gnarly is that!??! Shoot. This has all gone by so fast, pretty soon you'll be off to college, have kids of your own and I'll be prank phone calling you from my old folks home.

Right.

Ok. Maybe that's not the case.

Maybe I'll be calling you from jail (after I was arrested in 2010 for making too many prank calls...)

Anyways, I'm just all amped up and hope you can all make it out to CRAVE this Wednesday. Oh, don't forget about CRAVE @ Home on the 20th; email Wes or let him know this Wednesday where your group plans to meet.

And then coming up in the NEW YEAR we've got a TON of rad stuff for ya to check out. More CRAVE, of course, and the Ski Trip is fast approaching as well; we'll have a sign-up sheet on the YOUTH BOARD (upstairs outside the youth room, convenient eh?) and we may also have it out at CRAVE this week.

Fun times are ahead (do we ever have anything BUT fun? I think not.) so keep checking back here for the lowdown!

-Nick the Viking

and yes, I am a viking. Shea and I are both vikings.

The Sanctuary - Youth in need

Last night was great! If any of you would like to join us on a night down at the Sanctuary Youth Center, please do! Here's the scoop on what happened...

10 of us came down to the Sanctuary Youth Center (A place for teens living on the street) and helped make a difference in the lives of these teens. A lot of us didn't know exactly what we were getting into, but after the training we received, things seemed to be ok. It was hard at first to think of things to talk about... but Rob and Galen (seen above) just told us to "Chill" with them. By the end of the night, some of the teens that haven't ever said much were chatting away to us. We brought down some sleeping bags, blankets, and clothes and at the end some of it was distributed to the teens in need. We had a big "THANK YOU" from some of the teens that received sleeping bags.

I look at the weather for next week and it says this: "Highs of 0, -3, -4 with lows of -8 with flurries next wednesday"... and I can't image being on the cold pavement without warmth or a roof over my head. I feel so blessed. Last night the wind and rain blew up against our house... but they were out there, downtown.

Last night we made a huge difference... it may not have seemed like much, but it was!!! Thanks to those who came down with us last night (Erik, Jason, Lauren, Rachel, Sarah, Jubie, Justin, Suzanne, and Nick) and brought clothing and blankets. If you'd like to help us, we are collecting blankets, sleeping bags, and hoodies/clothes, socks, gloves for the Christmas season. You can drop them by the church and write a note on it saying "Wes - Sanctuary Youth Center" on it, and we'll get it down there. Stay tuned for our next opportunity that you can be a part of!!!!!!

Here were some comments from some of us who went:

"I wanna do this again!"
"When's the next one?"
"I'm so in for the next one"
"I can see that the more I come down here the better the friendships I can build"

Want more info? Email me at weslinde@telus.net or see the Sanctuary's website at http://www.sanctuaryyouth.org

Till next time,

-WUNIT-