My favorite kind of Sunday

Sunday was all about the kids. The majority of the kids who came all week for VBS were there for both services, where they got to share their scriptures and sing their songs. They were, in a word, awesome. Awesome. They sang, they danced, they ate donuts, and then they sang and danced again. I was so incredibly proud of them. It is THIS Sunday that makes being a VBS director worth it. I love seeing kids enjoying worship through music. Next week we are taking them on a day mission trip to perform their VBS program for the senior center. This is the first time we have taken them on a mission trip, and I am so excited about it.

Our VBS week itself was really great too. The kids had fun, we had wonderful volunteer leaders and workers, and we had about 20 of our youth come out just to help out. I am so grateful for everybody who pitched in to make it all work well!


After the VBS program, the youth group reported on their mission trip to Texas last month. Matt was the first teen to share his testimony and talk a bit about what they did. My favorite parts were, "We built a rock wall and then we had the girls finish it." and "We built a porch for a lady who..... needed a porch." (The lady is terminally ill with cancer and wanted to be able to spend her mornings on a porch for her daily devotionals.) Matt, however, was not alone in brief reviews. Another boy turned 16 on this trip and said, "On my 16th birthday I had to get up at 5:30 in the morning, and then scooped water out of a big hole with buckets, but that night we got to go to a Texas Rangers game and that made up for all the crap I had to do." I don't think I have ever heard "crap I had to do" preached from the pulpit before...hehehe.

But as much as he cracks me up, and even he is laughing about the talk he gave, I am extremely proud of Matt, and all of our youth. They did a good job down there in Texas, and I know Matt came home with a deeper testimony and an appreciation for performing acts of service. After he came home, he went on a Chrysalis Flight. On Sunday all of us who are local members of the Emmaus community stood up to welcome him to the group. Between the mission trip and the Chrysalis weekend, Matt has had a very busy spirit-growing summer!

After the youth presentation, we closed our service with prayer and the hymn "Here I am, Lord." This is one of my favorite hymns, which was a perfect way to end my favorite kind of service. I wish you all could have been there with us to see it!

VBS pics

I don't know what happened to my pictures, but somewhere between editing and uploading they got pretty blurry and grainy looking. I think next time I use this slideshow format I will save them in a larger dpi. Here they are! We had a really good time. If you ever need to be the director for a VBS, I really recommend this particular VBS pack. I absolutely loved the message of service that the kids learned in God's Big Backyard!

Ready for a new week!

It was fun, and I will gladly do it again next year, but WOOOHOOOOO!!!! VBS is over! I think it was a success. We had 64 kids altogether, and several of the kids participated in our program today. Along with being fun, there were parts that were pretty touching too. This was a great, exhaustive experience! I don't have anymore pictures to share from that tonight, because frankly, I am tired of looking at them after editing them for the program today.

Chet has been feeling up and down this week, and missed a couple of nights, but last night when I asked if he was going he gave a resounding, "Yes!" It would have been nice if it was VBS itself that had him so excited, but alas, he is a boy driven by his stomach. We were having a block-party style BBQ as part of our VBS, and he felt the call of cheeseburgers and the desire for the nutritious benefits (surely some exist) of a plateful of nachos AND Doritos. Efforts to convince him that corn in the form of Doritos or nacho chips does NOT count as a vegetable haven't been particularly successful.

After everything was all cleaned up and put away, my friend Crystal invited me to go to Eureka Springs with her and some friends for her birthday. She picked me up, but we didn't make it to the main road in town. We knew the rain was coming down heavily, and knew the roads had lots of water, but when we hit town and had streetlights we could really see the rivers the roadways had become. We decided it wasn't safe to try to make it up the hills in her little car, so we floated back to my house instead. She called her hubby Nathan, he met us at the house, and theeeennnn

the four of us played the best game ever invented. If you haven't played Cranium Wow you are missing out. We only played one round since we all had to be at the church this morning to run the program.
Jack went out this afternoon and pulled a lot of the weeds that were trying to choke my garden. He also pulled out my cucumber plants (and left the pumpkin plants) but I am coping with that. A few cucumbers is an easy enough sacrifice to make when it means I didn't have to pull the weeds myself. The pumpkin plants have invaded every part of my garden now.

Here is one of my pumpkin pepper plants. The white flower will be a jalepeno when it grows up, the yellow flowers will be pumpkins.

Here are my pumpkin lettuce plants. No flowers yet, but vining tendrils are everywhere.
Here are by pumpkin Big Boy tomatoes.
And here is a jumbo pumkin plant ....
preparing to hybrid itself with my broccoli. Such is life as a pumpkin farmer.

There were creepies and crawlies out there too. This pretty little flutterfly was visiting my punpkin carrot plants.
And this thing... well, I don't know what it is. I leave them alone when I come across them because they are mean-looking. They also have bright red on them, and in jungles that generally means something is poisonous. The weeds are tall enough to be jungle, so the Law of the Jungle applies here.
Oh grasshappers....they are everywhere. I have no idea what to do to get rid of them. Someday I should read up on this whole gardening thing because I am willing to bet there are a few tips out there somewhere that tell me how to keep the 6-legged creepies away. (I bet there are some good ideas for managing unruly punpkins too.)

And if one at a time isn't bad enough, you should see the villages the grasshoppers are setting up on my corn. I think there should be immigration laws that apply to this kind of squatting. If the Law of the Jungle applies, shouldn't the law of the land be applicable as well??

Tonight I did the funnest thing I have done all week. I took my kids to somebody else's VBS and left them there. hahahahahah..... life is so rewarding sometimes!

Making it through VBS

Oh man... I am tired. But we have had a good time, and most everything has gone smoothly. Tomorrow is the last day, and then tomorrow night we are having a huge BBQ. Sunday the kids have their program during the services... and theeennnnn...... VBS is over for a year!! Here are a few shots of my kids (and Tyler and Talon) from the last couple of nights. I am missing Matt and Faith... a lot!




We have spent most of our days at the church getting ready each day, but yesterday I made sure we were there for Chet's pottery class. He learned how to grind off hard spots on his fired pieces, and then we started glazing.

We ran out of time to get all of the pieces glazed. We will finish them up next week.
Sherry sent Chet home with a block of clay, and he spent today forming them into chess pieces. I don't have those pictures uploaded to my computer yet.

I should be back on Sunday sometime with more photos. Tomorrow is full of baseball, VBS, BBQ,and then I am going to my friend Crystal's birthday party. Sleep is optional.

Who's bright idea was this?

Who decided I should be in charge of the Children's Ministry, and therefore in charge of Vacation Bible School??? I don't know, but somehow that is what came to be. And it starts tomorrow. Tomorrow. I think everything is ready. I hope and pray everything is ready. Tomorrow is the big litmus test... I never even heard of VBS until last year,so I keep wondering if I can really pull this off. It is a good thing I have a great committee and volunteers to make it all go well! I invite you to come experience it for yourself... :0) It all starts at 5:30 tomorrow night, and we will be feeding the masses, playing games, getting to know our guest speakers, making crafts,singing songs,and most importantly, learning to serve Jesus by serving others. I will probably not be online much for the next few days. Wish us all luck and come join us if you are in the area!