Play Days

MONDAY

With new staff at Northwind, it was their first time doing play days so there was some confusion about how to best set up and some of the balloons with prizes for the dart game accidentally ended up being strung up on trees for decoration and wait…how are we going to get electricity to run the snow cone machine…

Time is ticking and the kids will get off the school bus soon…will the play day activities all get set up in time??

Prior to the pandemic, NWFM used to organize Play Days for the local communities (predominantly low income housing complexes) as a means to meet the community, share a Bible story, and inform families about the programs offered. As Bera shared, these are “the neighbourhoods that the rest of Thunder Bay drives around to avoid”. Even though the pandemic severely curtailed the opportunities to connect, the team at NWFM was intentional about establishing connections. (One example of how they managed that was by going door to door and offering hot chocolate in the winter.)

Today, we had the opportunity to join with NorthWind’s enthusiastic team of young adult leaders to run the first Play Day in two years!

Although the team had visited the complex last week to inform them of the Play Day, there was a bit of a slow start as school was still in session this week. It was a welcome delay though as set up took a little longer than anticipated because of a last minute change of location due to a scheduled tree felling (cue: adaptability skills). Once the kids (and adults) started trickling in, the flurry of activity laced the atmosphere with a palpable excitement. A breath prayer was said for each precious soul that we saw. Some of them, without prompting, shared very hard life stories in a nonchalant manner.

Many of the team members had already established relationships with these neighbours and knew each other by name. In some cases, new connections were made. This faithful group of young adults will be back in three weeks to follow up in this complex.

There is something inherently inspiring to witness the energy and enthusiasm of young adults who heed Jesus’s call to serve. The three inquisitive mamabears decided to take advantage of our own young adult being trapped with us on our 45 minute drive into town.  When queried how he came to the decision to serve with us this week, he shared, “Most people have been asking me ‘why? [especially when you could be doing something else]’. I think that the premise is wrong. The question I asked myself was ‘why not?’”

It tied in to the devotional that Bera had shared in the morning about the urgency to do the Lord’s work. As the verse from Matthew above states, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few”. Like the premise above, he shared that most people have it backwards; that is, they wait until they “feel Jesus” or have their spiritual life “figured out” before they take a step to serve/obey. But, as Bera says, “If you want to feel Jesus in your life, DO something for him.” (ie. follow first).