Youth Year-End Fiesta

We celebrated the end of the school year by having a "fiesta" at Youth Group. Perhaps the most important lesson learned that evening was this: if you are going to have a jalepeno-pepper-eating contest, be sure to have lots of milk on hand to help douse the flames afterwards.

"Water U Doing?" VBS Kick-Off Party

Our theme for Vacation Bible School this year is "Water U Doing?" We will focus on Jesus as the Living Water and on providing clean drinking water to children in Malawi (Africa). We are partnering with Trinity United Methodist Church, another church in downtown Lafayette. On April 19th we had a party to get recruitment and registration rolling for our June 14-19 VBS. We had Purdue students from the Engineers for World Health teaching the children about water conservation and purification. We had an African drum group--Cirque Afrique--entertaining us. We had free food. We had water-themed games. We had prizes. It was a blast! Our "Water U Doing?" VBS is going to be great!

Easter 2009

We celebrated Resurrection Day with all sorts of special additions--double bass, timpanis, trombone, trumpet, flute, saxophone, dancers, and streamers. Psalm 150 says basically to praise God with all that we've got. We attempted to do that on Easter morning. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! So we have to celebrate!

The photos below are courtesy of Katie Pimmler.

Seder Meal

On Palm Sunday (April 5th, 2009), we held a symbolic Passover Meal. We learned about the basic rituals of this ancient Jewish feast and gave specific attention to how we reinterpret this meal in light of Jesus Christ. It was really educational and really a lot of fun.

30 Hour Famine 2009

From 7:00a March 7th to 1:00p March 8th the CPC Youth went without solid food. This "30 Hour Famine" is an international youth event geared both to help educate youth about the realities of hunger in our world and to help raise funds for malnourished children throughout the world. The CPC Youth participated with an amazing amount of enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, and effectiveness. Below are a few highlights.

We played a series of educational games to learn about the realities of life for poverty-stricken children. This year our games focused on the Amazon region of the world. We divided into various "tribes" and competed for various resources. Pictured above, Kate Wier crosses "the river"--a game simulating the difficulties many children face just getting to and from school every day.

We constructed two "Roadside Memorials"--one along Columbia Street and one along South Street. Our aim was to raise awareness and support for children caught in the jaws of hunger. At each memorial we planted 1,100 forks in the ground. Each fork represented a child's life snuffed out by hunger each hour. We also constructed five signs that were interspersed with the forks. The signs read: "Every Day On Earth" "26,000 Children Die" "From Hunger" "Do Something" "www.30hourfamine.org." While we were working on the memorials we had people stopping and asking what we were doing...we were already meeting our goal of raising awareness!

The band "Red Umbrella" put on a spectacular concert in our gym on March 7th. This Christian band played a bunch of catchy, dance-able tunes that had our youth bustin' a groove (even though they hadn't eaten in more than 12 waking hours). The songs, the lights, the demeanor, the talent, the focus--Red Umbrella puts on a great show! We won't be surprised if they make it big in the coming years.

Crab Soccer Tournament. Another one of our "tribe" games.

A few more donations trickled in and brought our grand totol to $2,107.00! Our goal was $1500. Thank you, CPC Youth, for your faithfulness, hard work, and generosity! Thank you, Central Presbyterian Church, for your support and encouragement! Together we are helping to make a difference for our younger brothers and sisters who need food.

Ski Trip 09

A few pix from our 2/7/09 ski trip up to Bittersweet Ski Area (Otsego, MI--about a 3.5 hour drive). The day was breezy but with temps in the upper 40's. It made for slushy skiing but we didn't mind. It was a great day.

Jacob Smutz (in the blue an orange jacket on the right) navigates the slopes.

Maggie Painter and Hannah Sauer head to the chair lift.

Kate Wier, Austin Hartz, and Greg Mitchell take a rest in the lodge.

D'Angelo King, Darron Davis, and Darryl King ride the lift up the slopes.

Loaded up in the church bus, ready to head back home.

Super Bowl Party 2009

The Beardmore Family was generous enough (and brave enough) to invite the youth and parents/families over for another Super Bowl Party. It was the third year in a row the Beardmore's have hosted us. Pizza, chili, ping-pong, games, a beautiful home, wonderful hospitality, a great crowd of friends and family, and an incredibly good football game made this a thoroughly enjoyable evening for everyone.

Ready for halftime.

Enjoying the universal love language: pizza.

Shoes at the front door. We had close to 60 people join us at the Beardmore's for the party.

Eric and David Beardmore duke it out in the finals of the ping pong tournament.

Eric and David Beardmore defended their home court. David (on the right) took out his older brother Eric (left) in the finals to take first place.