By: Kate Vendrely

 

What do you get when you add up 15 middle school kids, a lot of plastic cups, a few blindfolds, 3 beach balls, and 4 extremely courageous adults?  The 2008 Venture Club Winter Retreat at Camp Menno Haven! With two vans the Venture Club kids and their sponsors packed up their Bibles headed toward yet another great adventure together.  It was an ideal weekend to learn about the other Venture Clubbers, God, and our speaker for the weekend, Abby Reel Haas.  We learned how to notice God, a little more about each other, and of course that a high temperature of -12, is as Ian Boltz puts it best, “Cold as Ice.”  We learned that we are sometimes too busy to notice God so we forget to watch for Him.  And no matter who you are or where you are, God is there and He’s watching and “is nearly bursting at the seams to communicate with us!” All we have to do is simply listen.  In addition to learning about God, we learned about many Venture Clubber’s “hidden talents”.  The Lombard kids who performed on stage at the talent show were Carley Graber, Meggan Garcia, and Ian Boltz singing fantastic solos!  We also learned a little bit about kids from the different churches through their acts in the talent show.  The Lombard Lollipops Volleyball team took 3^rd place in the volleyball tournament and won the record of the most kids on a single volleyball team with 10 kids!  Participants were: Abbie Kaser, Gabby Fanter, Lilianna Quiroa, Meggan Garcia, Andie Garcia, Mary Lacán, Carley Graber, Kate Vendrely, Chris Vendrely, and Ian Boltz.  And possibly for the first time in a long time, the Lombard Venture Club had the most attendees for a single church, 19!  So while we were setting records, we learned how to “flex our faith muscles” by reading the Bible, journaling, and having “Quiet Time”.  The Venture Club had a great time and would like to thank all the wonderful people who help out every year to make this possible for us, especially the sponsors who had to put up with us the whole weekend and went out in the cold and snow to help guide us on our long journey as we begin to notice and communicate with God.

 

 

LOCK-IN NEWS

When we made $260 from the jar mixes sold in November, we innocently decided to donate the money to PADS.  Little did we realize that PADS includes many different categories of help for the homeless.  Since our church already helps with the meals so well, Ann Pasnick assured us that further help for the meal was not needed.  PADS also helps homeless people to get back on their feet with jobs and housing.  Some housing is temporary for people who are just released from jail.  Other housing is more long term for people who are on a fixed income or who are handicapped in some way but do not need fulltime assistance.  Each person in this PADS housing pays an amount that according to their income level.  After Ann contacted the head offices, she found that many of these houses are in need of vacuum cleaners—small, bagless vacuum cleaners that do not need expensive or complicated replacement bags.  

 

Next came a shopping expedition to a Walmart to see how many vacuum cleaners the Venture Club money could purchase.  With Christmas sales, we found that we could buy six vacuum cleaners!  Did you know that one needs two shopping carts to move six vacuum cleaners?  And that the vacuum balancing on top can slide off if you are not careful when going around corners?  We finally got to the checkout line, and had to wait at least 15 minutes because the checker was so chatty and friendly to everyone she helped.  Meanwhile, many other customers asked us for directions to the SPECIAL SALE that Walmart must be having in the vacuum cleaner aisle.  We explained about the good price and that our sweepers were being donated to PADS housing by our youth group.  When we finally got to the checker and explained why we were buying so many vacuum cleaners, she was very excited also.  She said that she had been a beneficiary of the PADS meals in DuPage County and that they had helped her find her current job in Walmart.  She proudly told us about the condo on Irving Park Road in which she now resides. She said that she would like to go back to help cook a PADS meal like the ones had received when she was having hard times. We congratulated her and left the store to squeeze the sweepers our vehicle.  We hauled them to Lombard Mennonite Church just in time for the lock in on December 8.  After a dedication at the lock-in, they were delivered to the main PADS office so that they could be taken to be used in PADS housing.

 

 

 

ABBIE’S LOCK-IN REPORT

On Saturday, December 8, the Venture Club met at the church for our annual Lock-in. Throughout the night, we played games, watched movies, made monkey bread, and had a blast.  Paula Stoltzfus and Ann Pasnick shared about PADS and had a prayer of dedication for the sweepers. We raised money to purchase them with the jar mix sale in November. These vacuums would be going to the housing apartments for PADS. Ann explained how the housing works, and then we had a trivia game to review all the information we had learned about PADS.