Today was packed with time to spend with kids as it was Jr. High day at Lighthouse. We had kids with us from 10am when the first activity started until just after 9pm when we finally wrapped things up for the evening.

The morning started with a few hours of floor hockey and was followed by an afternoon of basketball. In the evening, we separated the church into "Girls Only" and "Boys Only" zones. The boys did some skateboarding in the gym while the girls had a manicure and movie night.


The ladies on our team put a lot of effort into preparing for the evening. We purchased and prepared snacks (including popcorn for the movie, of course), set up a comfortable place for movie watching and prepped our manicure and friendship bracelet tables. We had an awesome time eating and chatting with the girls while we painted their nails and taught them how to make friendship bracelets.


At one point, a few Jr. High girls were hesitant about coming in for a manicure and were hanging around outside the church. It was awesome to see some of the ladies on our team go outside to bring them some popcorn and to chat with them. It wasn't long before they were convinced to come in for a manicure and it was really encouraging to see how much our connection with these kids can make a difference!


The guys had an opportunity to build some really meaningful relationships with boys they had met earlier in the week. At our team meeting this evening, a few guys on the team commented on how they saw some boys at skateboarding who they remember inviting out to today's events on one of our flyer delivery days. It was awesome to see the fruits of our flyer deliveries earlier this week!

Tomorrow will be bittersweet; we are looking forward to another day of planting seeds but will have a hard time saying goodbye to the team from Erin who has joined us this week.

More from us tomorrow...