SUGARSUGARSUGAR

An account of one of our rare free-Saturdays:
One of the skills we are to learn at CEM is hospitality. Over the course of the year, we are to have invited the entire church over to our apartment for a meal. Today was our free Saturday, and I spent most of the day baking cookies so that we will have snacks ready for spontaneous guests. Normally, it is hard to have guests spontaneously if you are too much of a cheapskate to order pizza, so I am trying to be creative.
For lunch/a very late breakfast, we were invited to the other CEM girls' apartment for American-style pancakes, with Canadian-style maple syrup. After lunch, I made yet-more cookies and went shopping for yet-more ingredients, returned and made churros for our "Soiree des Jeunes", tonight with a Mexico-themed meal.
"Les Jeunes" meet every 2 weeks and includes ages 13-25. This Soiree and the last had about 30 in attendance, each time including a few young people that we've never seen before at the church.
At our Soirees, we first eat a very long meal, then play a few large-crowd-party games. After, we sing about 10 songs in a circle and then have a lesson. Last time, we went over the story of Joseph and how it is similar to the story of Jesus, and this week we did the same with Moses. After the 20 minute lesson, we have discussion groups, which are very fruitful and unfortunately too short.
Fortunately/unfortunately: The next Soiree des Jeunes is not for a month! That is because there is a country-wide youth retreat in mid-November. That is great for the young-people in our church but unfortunate for our visitors. Please pray that they will keep their interest in the Lord and come to our next group!

Your essential vocab for this blog post:
soiree-("swah-ray") your evening. Not necessarily a night out on the town; can be used for hanging out with your friends, having a dinner party, watching a movie; any evening activity.
Jeunes- young folks