This year, I finally saw a vision of mine come to pass.  Up until now, Windham Christian Academy - where I am the spiritual life director- has required the high school students to accumulate service hours.  This is a common requirement in many high schools.  It is also often very meaningless.  Students would put in their hours often in the easiest ways possible, check it off their semester's to-do list, and be done.  I wanted to see more commitment from our teens.  This most recent school year, we did it!  The high school students had a choice of four ministry projects, each led by an adult volunteer. The teams were: elderly visitation, creation care, food pantry and the Root Cellar (an inner city mission in Lewiston, Maine.)  The kids really owned their projects, and some are even continuing to serve in these areas over the summer vacation.

So to celebrate this year, we had a service retreat.  It started with the high school students assisting in the various elementary classes at WCA.  Then we traveled to the Casco Inn, a senior assisted living facility two towns away.  Here the teens visited people in their rooms, and played some games in the living room.  Among other things, they played a trivia game in which the seniors answered questions about current pop culture while the high schoolers had to answer questions about pop culture in the 1950's and 60's.  This game was played twice, and each side won once.  

The highlight at the Casco Inn,though, was human whack-a-mole.  We brought a huge cardboard box with holes in the top.  Six teens got inside and would pop their heads out randomly while some of the senior citizens armed with pool noodles tried to whack them on the head as they popped out.  At least one of the residenrs discovered she could shove the noodle in through the hole and whack Killian on the head even when he didn't pop out.

From there we crossed the street to the Casco Alliance Church ( my family's home church) and did some raking and other varied grounds work.  After a great lunch of home made lasagna provided by Liam's mother, we worked together in the food pantry at CAC, organizing, cleaning and doing inventory.

Before our day ended, we all gathered in the Casco Alliance sanctuary for a time of worship and sharing.  Each team shared pictures and testimonies about the various ministry projects they had worked on throughout the year. Well done, guys.  And we have plans to grow the high school ministry options next year.