jump to navigation

Deliverance I June 3, 2007

Posted by Anya in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so far

Every year, my youth group does a week-long thing called Deliverance.  It gets pretty… crazy… but they do it partly as an outreach and partly, I think, to burn off the weird ideas they get from being with us all year. 

This year, the theme is “Around the World in 5 Days” and tonight was Asia.  We had some Asian food for dinner, did several games:  picking up peanuts with chopsticks (that I could handle), hackeysack (where my team somehow conspired to all be about as bad as me!), a game called something like Tingaling (which I STANK at, but maybe I’ll practice and sorta get the hang of it…) and Chinese jumprope (which was funky but I wasn’t too good at it… I think I could do it with some practice.)

Then we had our lesson from Mark M, who had just returned from Thailand.  He talked about how it’s not just people in America… or in Asia for that matter, who need Christ.  That was the serious part.  Then he was also telling us about different Asian customs; it got a little… erm… goofy.

You have to understand, it was raining fairly steadily, and we were outside.  The porch roof was actually a tarp, and the rain kept pooling on it, and the one of the guys would have to take the broom and push the “roof” up so that the rain would spill off.  Well, Mark had been telling us about Thai New Year, which is in April when the weather is about 115 degrees.  =P  Anyway, people run around drenching each other with buckets of water — even those wearing three-piece suits!!  Right after Mark said that, one of the guys went up behind him and knocked all the water off, causing a mini-Niagara Falls!

Mark:  *jumps*

everyone else:  “Happy New Year!!!”

 Also, Mark was telling us about the greetings (in Japan), and how the younger person must bow lower than the older person to show respect.  I caught Samwise’s eye and said, “Hey!  That means that you…”

Sam began laughing.  If we’re going by birthdays, he is younger than me.  By about, um, three hours.  That’s always good for some fun.  ^_^

Let’s see… Anna, our one Chinese girl, was trying to give Greg lessons on how to use chopsticks.  It was most amusing to watch, because as a general rule, she doesn’t bother to explain things.  She just kept cramming his hand into different positions.

Greg:  *as Anna tries to get him to do it again* “I know all this stuff.”   

Anna:  *gets distracted and looks away*

Greg:  *makes face of utter confusion and mouths NOT to me*

Then Anna decided to take a picture of Greg the Master Chopstick User.  So he posed with the chopsticks halfway to his mouth and she snapped his picture.  When she had finished, Greg, trying to eat his bite of rice, completely dropped it. 

=)