Eggs before Easter, GFS AGM and other good times.

Relay with gloves, glasses...and eggs.

One of the best parts of my job is travelling around to different parishes and seeing young people meeting together in a safe, secure place where they can have fun and learn more about Jesus and the Christian journey without worrying about what's happening elsewhere for a while.

Last Friday, I made it down to Logan Anglican parish (St Mark's, Daisy Hill) to join the Youth@APOL  (Anglican Parish of Logan) for their Term 1 break-up.  What a great group!  About 17 teens turned up, alongside their four wonderful leaders, Lisa, Frances, Tom and Howard. The group is clearly a diverse bunch but the children of Africans, South Sea Islanders and Australians competed in mixed teams in a fantastic spirit of fellowship.



Some incredible skills here in egg-swiping!

I admit I was a little worried when Lisa pulled out a big basket of coloured eggs and started handing them out, but after I gave my blue one a bit of a shake, I was fairly reassured I was dealing with the hard-boiled kind... which is SLIGHTLY less concerning at the start of a Youth night, but I knew we weren't out of the woods just yet.  I've seen some very disturbing messy games nights in my time, and eggs were often a big part of them.

90 minutes later, we had done almost everything it was possible to do with the eggs: hunt for them, run around with them on spoons, roll them, grab them, drop them, unpeel them... I don't think I saw anyone actually eat one, but it could have happened when I wasn't looking.

The Blue team won tonight's Egg-olympics, but not without a big struggle.  The Easter egg hunt inside the Church and Hall was also very competitive, though pleasingly no chocolate appeared to be consumed before the end of the night when it became open slather.

It was great to catch up with Fr Geoff, and also with Jeremiah, the leader of the African migrant community within the parish.

The Group Deal

As we shared a lavish supper towards the end of the evening, I was quite taken by the group's Mission Statement on the wall.  Does your group have a Mission Statement like this one?

Mission Statement

I was also delighted to see a 'social contract' or as it's sometimes known, a 'group deal' statement where the group members and leaders decide by consensus what kind of behaviour will be considered OK and what kinds will be not OK when the group is in session.  It's very important that the group deal is abided by and referred to frequently as the year rolls along.

Great to meet you, Youth@APOL, and I look forward to seeing more of you this year!  Youth@APOl is open to all highschoolers and meets at St Mark's Daisy Hill from 7 to 9 every Friday night during term time. Contact the Parish office vis the link above for more info.