Team Peru Brings in the Year with a Retreat to Remember

As team Peru set off on the New Year, we gathered together on January 4th at the Youthlinc office to head  for our retreat in the beautiful mountains. One of our team members Rin and her family were kind enough to host us at their cabin for the weekend and we couldn't be more grateful for the beautiful snowy lodgings we were provided with, bunk beds and all. We arrived at about 7 at night, and in about 7 degree weather, which was a little chilly on the snowmobile ride up, but we all safely arrived ready to have a great time together and get a lot done.

Our first order of business was to warm up closely followed by our monthly team meeting.Within our meeting we discussed our ideas to fund raise for supplies to take with us to Peru, heard about some of the main service in our group, as well as breaking out into our committees. Our committees this year are truly amazing and hope accomplish a lot. The Medical Committee is working on figuring out what kinds of things they would like to accomplish before they leave and planning for the medical aspect of the Peru trip. Our Vocational Committee worked together to plan for gathering fabric and supplies for the hand crank sewing machines we will be bringing down with us, and worked on a project making reusable feminine pads.

After being so productive in our break out sessions, it was time for the team to kick back have some fun and do some bonding, and what brings more bonding than a ping pong tournament?  Our doubles ping pong champions were Michelle Moynihan and Stephen Buma, but our MVP of the night was defiantly our wonderful Mark Burningham who showed amazing paddle control and a great sense of coordination. The activities ran long into the night and by the time everyone got to bed it was nearly 2 in the morning.
Our night was filled with a lot of fun, as well as the chance to really get to know our team and prepare for the adventure to come.
Despite our late night we were up bright and early the next morning. We had an amazing breakfast of bagels and muffins along with other delicious snacks left over from the night before.

We then got down to our service projects. Some made tied fleece blankets (with some of the wackiest patterns ever to be seen) and put together folders to take down to teach the kids about basic numbers and letter.
 Others worked on cutting out fabric for out reusable feminine pad that we will take down with us and teach the women there how to make. These projects were a big hit last year and the goal this year is to have more than enough for all of the women.

 Others still were doing all they could to stay awake after the amazing time we had the night before. All in all we got so much done in the morning. We made many blankets and folders and cut out lots of supplies for our projects.

Team Peru started the year off with a bang at our retreat and man did we get a lot done. Our team is looking forward to our Year Service and we are very excited that we get to spend it together in our Youtlinc Family

Happy New Year from Team Peru!