Group Pictures 3/27/12

 Today was group picture day for our Bright Lights group! Because our group is so large, it took a while to get everyone in place & get a nice picture but we finally got a winner!

Click the photo to view a larger version

Seeing this picture and all these joyful faces makes me so happy.. it is truly an honor to know each one of these amazing BRIGHT LIGHTS!

Silly Picture

We also took some time to take small group pictures as well. Here are the photos of each small group.

The Rebekah Group

Rebekah Group Silly Picture

The Mary Group

Mary Group Silly Picture

The Esther Group

Esther Group Silly Picture

The Miriam Group

Miriam Group Silly Picture

The Ruth Group

Ruth Group Silly Picture

After we finished all the pictures, we returned inside for a lesson on disrespect, small groups & tea. I look forward to seeing you all again on April 10th!

Small Group Leaders 2011-2012

Something many girls in our Bright Lights group may not realize is that once a month, all the older girls who serve as small group leaders take time out of their Saturday afternoons to pray and plan for their small groups. These young women have faithfully invested time into serving and praying for the 6-8 girls in their groups.

Today was one of our meetings & we took time out to take a few pictures.

Miriam Group Leaders

Ruth Group Leader

Esther Group Leaders

Mary Group Leaders

Rebekah Group Leaders

I am so blessed by the way these girls love & serve with such willingness & joy! It is truly an honor for me to know & serve alongside them! Thank you girls for all that you do! :)

Q&A Meeting

This meeting was a little unusual because there wasn't a set lesson topic. Instead, Allison answered various questions girls had submitted at our previous meeting and shared about some new happenings for the semester.

We began the evening with a game called "mingle" where girls got to walk around & then get in groups by certain criteria (same color shirt, same town, etc.). Once divided into groups, they were given a discussion question to answer amongst themselves. Then, that pattern was repeated.

After Allison's time of sharing, the girls signed up for pen pals & then went to their small groups for relationship building, discussion & prayer. We ended with tea & dessert.

I look forward to seeing you all again on January 24th!

Self Control 5/10/11

This evening we finished our last Bright Lights lesson for the year by finishing set three. To begin the evening, several of the girls had prepared music or scripture memorization to share with us. Thank you ladies for taking the time to share with us, it was a blessing! Unfortunately, we only got a picture of one of the performances.

Sara playing the clarinet

Our ongoing activity for the evening was a game that made everyone aware of how hard it is to control the tongue. Each girl was given two stickers & told not to say "I" at all during the evening. If anyone heard you saying the forbidden word they could take one of your stickers and put it on themselves. Whoever had the most stickers by the end of the night won. In the end, Heather was the winner. :)

Once the game was over, Sarah decided to collect the stickers on her face. ;)

We were able to take group pictures at this meeting and pretty much everyone was there so they turned out really well.

Silly Picture...

We also got a group picture with each of the small groups.

The Rebekah group, led by Karen & Haleigh...

The Mary group, led by Sylvia & Rachel...

The Esther group, led by Katelyn, Jessica & Jenny

It's been a great year, I look forward to seeing you all with your moms for our last meeting on May 24th at CBC!

At this meeting we celebrated the birthdays of Jenna, McKenzie & Kalei

Humility 4/26/11

This evening our meeting was on humility. The opposite of humility is pride. We show pride in our lives when we exaggerate, brag about accomplishments, condemn others, demonstrating stubbornness or rebellion, and many other ways. The world encourages us to stand up for ourselves and fight but Jesus tells us the opposite - we are to show humility and learn to put other before ourselves.

One area where we can show humility is in our relationships with our families. We must learn to have humility in order to quench quarrels and seek forgiveness.

The best way to gain an attitude of humility is to realize how sinful and small we are compared to our all-powerful, almighty God. A full understanding of His majesty should cause us to humble ourselves even more so that He might be made known through us.

We took some time to study some great men of the Bible and their various responses of humility when they were in the presence of the Lord.

After the lesson, we all gathered in the living room and I explained the instructions for our next activity - the humility test.

The girls worked in groups to complete a VERY tricky humility test. All of the answers to the test came from the Bible but the girls were not allowed to use their Bibles to complete this test.

The Bible verses they needed to answer the questions on the test were found on index cards. The only "problem" was, there was only one copy of each verse.

So, the teams had to trade cards in order to get all the necessary information to complete their tests. You had to be careful who you traded with because there were penalty cards that would delay your team or put you at a disadvantage.

I forgot to announce the winner at the end of our meeting so I'll post it here. It ended up being very close. Each team finished as follows:
1st place: Haleigh's team with 19 points
2nd place: Karen's team with 16 points
3rd place: Jessica's team with 15 points
4th place: Katelyn's team with 12 points
5th place: Sylvia's team with 9 points

Amber with the Rebekah group's beloved monkey. :)

After small groups, we took some group photos. Since we had quite a few girls missing this week, we're going to take them again at our next meeting. Whichever picture has the most girls present will be the winner. :)

Click on the photo to see it larger.

Silly photo! Click on the photo to see it larger.

During tea time the girls surprised me with some flowers, singing the birthday song, cards & two lovely posters for my birthday. I was very surprised and blessed by their thoughtfulness! Thank you ladies, you are a blessing!!!

A few more pictures of tea time...

Amber, Melissa, Martha & Abby

Sylvia, the Black's friend (sorry I forgot your name!), Sarah & McKenzie

Brooke & Katie

I will look forward to seeing everyone again on May 10th! Don't forget your Bible memory sheets!