Christmas Olympics!!!

There’s nothing that says Christmas like Creamed Herring…at least that’s what Collision would say now that they’ve competed in our 1st annual Christmas Olympics.

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, and these might be worth even more than that.

Event#1:  Christmas around the world!

Instructions:

• Find the basket marked with your team number.
• Inside you will find a variety of international Christmas foods to try.
• You will get a point for every food that EVERYONE in the group tries.
• You will get a point for every food that is finished completely.
• You will get 5 bonus points if ALL the food is finished completely.
• You will get a point for each correctly identified food.
• You will get a point for each correctly identified country that the food is from.

Ohhh....could it be the creamed herring and mincemeat???

Why the sad face Andy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVENT:2  Casper’s Christmas Photo Shoot!

Be gentle with my poor (moderately tortured) dog and get him to pose for the BEST Christmas picture you can snap!  The picture can include costumes, bandanas, blankets for backdrops, etc…  NO PEOPLE!!!  You can bribe him with exactly 3 treats per team.

Catching the perfect shot.

Winner of the Bronze medal

Winner of the Silver medal

Winner of the Gold!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVENT#3  You should be on Broadway!

Use the next 15 minutes to come up with a short Christmas themed skit.  It can be anything from a song to a mime to a dance and everything in between.  Make us laugh….make us cry….use a costume or two…

(I’m positive links to videos of these skits will be added here in the near future!)

 

EVENT#4   NaTINvity Scene!

Use one entire roll of tin foil (if you need it!) to create a unique and amazing nativity scene (you know…..Jesus, Mary, camels and such…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVENT#5  “Where’s The Present” Race

Find one of 3 presents hidden in my house.  Unwrap it and complete the task inside (a 50 piece puzzle).  The 1st team finished takes the gold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final award ceremony:

Our Bronze medal winners: Nick (who (as a Colts fan) is already used to coming in last), Carlee, Kyle (who can NOT keep from smiling!) and Andy!

Our silver medal winners: Ericka, Aaron, Jackie and Danielle!!

Taking home the GOLD: Miranda, Megan, Ryan and Ryan!!!!!!

Enjoyed this crazy night with you Collision- Merry Christmas!!!!!!     -Ruthanne

Pancakes and Paper (and why girls socks are better than guys)

 

 

Live your dream….a night full of anticipation and hope.  Whos dreams will be granted??  Will they involve jello or fire??  Ben kept the suspense alive by asking us to answer this age-old question:  “What interview question would you ask someone to determine that he/she wasn’t crazy?”

“Ask them if they could be any tree in the forest what they would be and why.  If they answer the question at all they are crazy.”

“Ask them if they liked the Princess Bride”

“Ask them their favorite animal.  Penguins are bad.”

“Politely ask them if they are crazy”

Ask them, “Do you relate well to suspects on cop shows?”

Ask them, “Do you ever see one of those terrible crimes on TV and think ‘I could do better than that?'”

 

Finally Ben announced our dreams for the night: we would be writing a novel and getting it published for Gabe AND we would be making chocolate chip pancakes.

Wait….chocolate chip pancakes is not on the list of dreams…..?  Oh- but it IS a dream….its Ben’s dream…he’s had it since he walked into Meijer just before COLLISION and saw chocolate chips.

Its a NEW dream…fresh out of Ben’s brain.

Divide and conquer!  Half the group started pancakes while the other half began to sketch out a plot for Gabes novel (and eat pancakes).  Then we switched (and proved decisively that girl socks are better).  The pancakes were GREAT.  The novel- GENIUS!  I’d tell you the plot (criminal by day…..superhero by night….criminal profiler for a girlfriend….lots of sleeping pills…..) but then you might be tempted to steal it for your own.

Dessert (lots of it in ADDITION to the pancakes), Crazy cardboard Christmas glasses, Catch Phrase (no Carlee, Chicago is not a state….) and laughing until the timer batteries died and we had to quit.

Two dreams granted….one checked off the list….lots of laughter, fun, friends and food—a perfect night!

We thought the week couldn’t get any better after Wednesday and then we were invited to join the college-age ministry of Brookside (Collateral) on Sunday night for their Christmas party.  Pizza and snacks and full contact UNO, BANG and Euchre….plus Christmas Carols and some new friends–  two GREAT nights in one week!!

Pictures to prove it:

Read

Stir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pour

YUM!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eat!

Girl socks are better

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Write a novel

Fun with Collateral

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Ruthanne

This Blog Entry Is Not Sasquatch.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever wondered whether Sasquatch exists?  Me too.  While failing to solve this mystery last Wednesday, we were able to decide that certain things were not Sasquatch.  Such as:

• Defacing white t-shirts with highlighters while wearing glowsticks in a darkened church basement
• Running willie-nillie through the church as we pretended to be Whos fleeing from one of two Christmas-hating Grinches
• Hiding loudly under tables in a children’s classroom
• Writing non-sensical stories on other people’s papers
• Yelling “It’s not Sasquatch!” as a clue in Catch Phrase

Sadly, none of these things is Sasquatch.  Happily though, they are all things we did last Wednesday.  If you missed it, I’m sorry.  Hopefully you were finding Sasquatch.

Until next time, keep believing.  He’s out there.  🙂

–Gabe

All You Need Is Love (if you want to look different)

Two weeks ago, Ben led us in learning about love.  He took us first to Jesus’ words in Mt. 22:37-40, where Jesus asserts that the two greatest commandments are for us to love God and to love our neighbor, in that order.  But just as scurvy symptoms should alert someone to a vitamin C deficiency, we should be able to diagnose a lack of love in the world when we watch sitcoms, listen to conversations around us, or read the advice columns in the newspaper.  In discussing the cause of a lackluster love for others, we thought that a shift from focusing on others to pleasing ourselves was a main root of the problem.

So Ben showed us some biblical reasons to love others.  Here are a few of what we looked at: God is love, so in order to be closer to Him, we need to love (I Jn. 4:16 b); we love because God loved us first (I Jn. 4:19-21); a sign of our redemption should be the love of Christ manifesting itself to others through us (I Jn. 3:11-17).  (Are you beginning to notice a common thread with the references?)  🙂

And on the flip side, here is a reason we should not use to stimulate love for others: results.  In I Cor. 13, Paul begins the chapter by discussing incredible things, such as prophesying, knowing everything, having great faith, and even giving all one has to the poor.  However, he doesn’t praise these things in themselves.  He says that without love, none of them means anything more than a poorly played percussion piece.  Even faith?  Yes.  Even giving everything we own to save the helpless?  Yep.  Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said our most important instructions deal with love.  Besides, Bill Gates, Oprah, and Brangelina (yes, I actually typed that) have done some amazingly generous things with their money, but the world still sees them as their own kind–no different, simply more fortunate and generous with what they have.

However, there should be a distinction between generous, secular people–although their efforts should be applauded–and Christians.  Galatians tells us that love is a sign of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and Jesus said the same thing: “By this all men will know you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn. 13:35, NASB)

Many people see intolerance or judgmentalism as Christians’ hallmark characteristic.  According to Jesus, though, what they see should be our love for each other.

–Gabe

Time Flies

The temperature outside may have dropped, but Collision has done anything but slow down. In case you missed it, here is just a tiny sampling of what that last few weeks have offered:

Live Your Dream

Once again, the Collision team has proven that achieving dreams is simply a matter of determination and creativity. In a single night, we answered some important questions: Can you dye a dog orange? Yes (but he won’t like it). Can you swim in JELL-O? Yes (but you might not want to). Can you obtain world peace? Yes (but you might want to be very specific about the spelling). We also enjoyed an internet boxing lesson and the burning of a Brett Favre jersey. Kevin even Skyped in for the occasion.

All Nighter

Who knew Northeast offered so many great hiding spots? We spent the night inside the church and did anything but sleep. Between games of Sardines and Assassins, we enjoyed Rock Band in the Sanctuary and cards games in the basement. It was a night of fellowship and junk food. Serious talk and silliness. Acts of service and acts of sleep deprivation.

Coffeehouse

The sweet smell of coffee filled the room while Christy and Gabe took turns at the microphone. It was Coffeehouse, an annual fundraiser from the summer mission trip to Slovakia. We strung up some lights and turned the trailer into a hangout spot. The entire Collision team would like to thank anyone who donated, helped set up, or simply stopped by. Your support means so much to us.

-Andy

Check the video out here!

Loving our Enemies

Wednesday, we looked at Matthew 5:43-48, where Jesus commands His followers to love their enemies.  This conflicted with the wisdom of the day, which stated that the Jewish (read “Christian”) thing to do was to love one’s neighbor and hate one’s enemy.  This was an aberration of the Old Testament law which required that the Israelites not despise Egyptians, who held them in slavery (Deut. 23:7), and that they help their enemy’s animals when they saw them in peril so that even their enemies would be able to support themselves (Ex. 23:4-5).

We are exhorted to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  Admittedly, we are not persecuted in the modern United States as Jesus knew the Christians of that day would be soon after he left this world.  But shouldn’t that make it easier?  Yet I find myself whining almost daily about something a student did or said, how an administrator acted, the way a teacher’s assistant decided she wanted to be the teacher instead, or to broaden the spectrum, the way another driver cut me off in traffic then slowed down to make me miss a light.  When I complain about these things, I am stripping a fellow human down to an obstacle or antagonist, forgetting that he was made in the same image in which I was made, the image of the God I claim to follow as my Lord.

How far do we take this?  Hitler and Mussolini were enemies of many people.  Does Jesus’ command apply even to them?  Or what about Bin Laden and Qaddafi?  I wish I had a conclusion to draw on these issues, but they are legitimately difficult things to search out because some would claim that the more loving thing to do is to kill people like this because they end so many lives that have done nothing to deserve death.  We need to be careful to seek an answer from God’s word, not from culture, and as I said, I’m still trying to figure this out for myself.

Regardless of whether we should kill tyrants and terrorists, we need to answer the practical question of how to treat the taxing troublers of our lives.  We all have people that appear to seek the demise of our job, character, or emotional stability.  Even if these are things that they are truly attempting to achieve, we need to treat them with the respect of a fellow human being, made in God’s likeness.  They deserve our love just as much as our ailing grandfather or our adorable little niece.

So how do we accomplish this?  Prayer is a big part of it.  Jesus commands us to pray for those who persecute us.  It should be a snap, then, to pray for those who ask us to work free overtime at a job for which we normally get paid.  (Yeah, that’s ethically questionable, but bear with me; I’m spitballing.)

Blessing people is another aspect.  Using our words to better someone who has used theirs to cut us down can be one of the most healing things to do for us and for them.

I was going to write about how Carlee was an assassin 4 out of 5 games and how Andy always seems to pull the queen card when I’m mayor, but this has gone on long enough, so I’ll let you go.  Have a great week.

And let your love be strong.

-Gabe

P.S.  Here’s that video on how NOT to pray for your enemies.  Enjoy.  🙂

Collision’s Fall Fest!

 

Last Saturday we had a wonderful time at Stillwater Retreat helping with some fall cleanup of leaves at the camp.  We raked, laughed, split wood, dragged tarps, cooked hotdogs, sang, went on a hayride driven by none other than our own Nick, played on the tire swing, puzzled over trees with padlocks, killed spiders, and made the worlds largest s’more to make Ryan V’s dream come true….an altogether perfect day captured here in a slide show.

Livin’ the Dream(s)

This past Wednesday, we had a “live your dream” night…and lots of fun.  There was food, espionage, altruism, mass confusion, and robotic mayhem!  If you missed it, we wish you had been able to join us, but know that you were in our thoughts.  (Just hopefully not Carlee’s as she swung that vacuum cleaner accessory.)

We began by giving Ruthanne her lifelong wish of ordering one of everything from the McDonald’s menu.  Ryan Davidson was kind enough to put the order in ahead of time.  That way, we avoided the awkward act of ordering the massive smorgasbord.  He even had it ready for us by the time we got there.  What a guy!  In order to fully live her dream, though, Ru wanted to put in the order, so when we were done eating, she approached an employee and did so.  🙂

From there, we headed across the street to Glenbrook Mall, where we began by fulfilling Jackie’s dream of putting quarters in gumball machines and watching what happens.  Children tried to get gumballs but couldn’t turn the handles far enough.  Other people used them.  The rest stole the quarters.  It was an interesting illustration of human nature.

Jackie also desired to give a gift to a random stranger.  Since a group of around fifteen people might have been intimidating, she went ahead in a group of three and gave a nice little pumpkin decoration to someone.  Perfect for both Halloween and Thanksgiving.  So practical!  (Don’t tell her, but a couple of us saw a similar little pumpkin on a table near Auntie Anne’s after the incident.)

We walked from there to the fountain and stared at the ceiling.  No really, it was fun!  Andy has wanted to be involved in a flash mob, so we decided we would all stare at the same point above us and see what people did.  There were many confused looks sent our way.  Some people stopped to stare with us.  When recounting a tale of a woman asking him what we were looking at, Ryan D. said, “I just kept looking.”

Our travels then took us to Ruthanne’s house.  We waited for all to arrive, but none waited more eagerly than Carlee, who knew that she was about to be: EPIC.  Ben and Ryan had constructed a terrifyingly deadly killer robot for her to destroy…if it didn’t get her first!  As she picked up the vacuum tube, her arms surged with the primal might gained from the basic need to survive.  Adrenaline fueled her first swing, which served to decapitate the mechanical monstrosity.  After beating its still convulsing circuits, she tore out its toaster heart and held it high above her head, signifying the human triumph over manmade intelligence!

After that, some of us slid cell phones across the floor as we ate some amazing cookies.  It may have been anticlimactic, but after such an exciting night we were glad for the rest.  Hope to see you there for the next one!

-Gabe

 

 

Check out the slide show of our adventures here!

What I’m most thankful for…

A few of the things we are thankful for.

Cars.  Family.  God’s love.  House.  Baby.  Jobs.  Health.  Friends.  Bed.  Doctors.  Weekends.  Salvation.  Lip gloss.  Coffee.  Computer.  Food (especially Whopper candies).  people serving in military.  Boy/Girl friend.  Sunshine.  Vacations.  Grandparents.  Football.  Dogs.  Ipods.  Video games.  Pastors.  Showers.  Fast food.  Music……

A few of the things that get in our way as we try to be more thankful:

Selfishness.  Stress.  Laziness.  Honesty.  People I’m around.  We have gotten used to what we have and now we want more.  We don’t pay attention.  We don’t have time.  We choose to see just the negative.

Sometimes, the very things we complain the most about are the things we are actually most grateful for.

According to God’s word:

“Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ  Jesus.”

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness.”

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since members of one body you were called to peace, and be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

“Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.  Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.  Know that the Lord is God.  It is He who made us and we are His, we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.  Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.  For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”

The challenge:

• Make it a goal to better understand who God is and what Christ’s death on the cross actually means to you.  This is where thankfulness begins.  When we really understand what we deserve from God and what He gave to us instead we will WANT to give every bit of our lives to God in overwhelming thankfulness….this is the thankfulness that spurs you on to action in other areas.
• Get perspective.  If all you can see is the negative in a person or situation, step back and try to see it from a different perspective.
• Count your blessings.  Write them down, take pictures of them, sing about them… but start to keep track of all the ways God has blessed your life.  Even in really hard times there are still blessings.  Try thanking God for everything around you RIGHT NOW- every sight, smell, sound, touch, breath, person, item……everything.
• GIVE thanks.  Recognize the people around you.  Thank them for the ways they brighten your day- especially when they do something every day for you and you are “used” to it and never thank them anymore.  Show your thanks by serving others.  Send notes or texts that tell people how thankful you are for them.  Write letters to God about the things you are thankful to Him for.  Live your life for Him in thanks.

 

-Ruthanne

The Open Road

Remember that road trip we went on? Oh the memories. It seems like just yesterday we were trapped in a smelly car, invading playgrounds, and committing felonies. We were so young. So carefree. Let’s reminisce. Gather around. Grab a comfy chair and lean in close. As we flip through the photo album, remember the good times and the lessons learned.

– Leaving Carlee behind is a great way to free up some much needed space in the car

– If you need money for gas or Twizzlers, rob the nearest bank

– Trees can stand for hundreds of years, but can also fall at any second

– For some people, Depends are vital. Never let your stock run out

Andy

Want to see all the road trip pictures?  Click here!