"My hand is still upon you"

So much has happened over the last year.  God continues to show me that He is in control and never ceases to amaze me. Recently, I have been struggling a bit.  One day last week I was driving to Chick-Fil-a to get breakfast for my daughter before I drove her to school. On the way there I was talking with God.  Praying that I would be in the center of His will always, remembering places in the Bible when God's hand was upon a person or group of people and whe He chose to remove His hand from them. Praying that His hand would still be upon me. I clearly heard the Lord say "My hand is still upon you".  In my very candid conversation with God I began to tell him I couldn't understand why and that I really didn't feel like his hand was upon me. Yet again, I hear "My hand is still upon you".  I pull back into the parking lot to pick up My daughter and take her to school and as I do, I notice a police car.  I got out of my car and asked my neighbor  if he was ok.  I had noticed him standing on the sidewalk as I was leaving but I just thought he was waiting on a ride.  My neighbor began to tell me that his car and another neighbor's car had been broken into during the night.  The police officer asked me to check my cars and make sure nothing was missing.  Nothing was missing!  While driving my daughter to school, I thought about what had just happened.  You see, there were only two cars between my car and the cars that had been broken into. Also, I had forgotten to lock my car the night before and my keys were actually in my car along with my purse and wallet!!  Once again I hear "My hand is still upon you".  

Thank you Lord for your confirmation. If Your hand is upon me, than I should get busy at the the kingdom work you have set before me. 

Crazy idea

The beginning of a crazy idea. 

Got up at 4 am. I started reading my bible because that's just what I do when I wake up in the middle of the night. I usually figure The Lord has something for me to learn if he has me awake. So I am going to share all this with you, my friends and readers. 

Non profit name... Possibly "Love Share"

Non profit purpose:

1. Come alongside locally established orphanages to provide support and encouragement.

-sponsorships

-connecting them with other organizations that can help meet a need

-educational assistance

2. Educating parents on proper nutrients & hygiene so they feel better equipped to care for their own children 

- clinics in the villages. Provide wash cloths, soap, comb, mosquito nets, vitamins, rice & beans, toothbrush, tooth paste and instructional materials.

Love share : Love god. Love people.

Loving orphans and educating parents.

Verses that lead me in this direction:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40 ESV)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 ESV)

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:7-11 ESV)

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47 ESV)

Whatever you have done for the least of these you have done for me.

He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing. (Deuteronomy 10:18 NLT)

The Lord protects the foreigners. He defends the orphans and widows, but he blocks the way of the wicked. (Psalms 146:9 NCV)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27 ESV)

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (James 1:22 ESV)

Ephesians 5:8

for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:8-10 ESV)

Psalm 19:14

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14 ESV)

Romans 12:2a

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2 ESV)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1, 2 ESV)

These are all scriptures that I have been given in the middle of the night.  I have written them down over the past year.  Praying for God's direction and wisdom as to what I am to do with all of this. 

Productive day

It has been a productive day.  We found the place we will purchase the mattresses.  Ms. Vicki & I had our hair made:).  Then we purchased supplies for tomorrows outreach in the village. We also purchased a dvd playerdor the children's home and some popcorn for the movie party we will have this weekend.

Productive day

It has been a productive day.  We found the place we will purchase the mattresses.  Ms. Vicki & I had our hair made:).  Then we purchased supplies for tomorrows outreach in the village. We also purchased a dvd player for the children's home and some popcorn for the movie party we will have this weekend.

A day of rest

I woke up and had fresh pineapple and sweet bananas for breakfast, two of my favorite things to eat while in Kenya.  Ms.  Vicki had already left the compound to run an errand.  When she returned, I asked how I could best help her today.  She replied Oh no sister, today is your day if rest and then we shall get to work.  

For those of you who know me well, you know that I don't rest well.  I'm trying to be obedient and rest.  However,  I would rather be working.  I have walked around the compound, played with the children and that's about it.  I can't wait till this day of rest is over!

Made to Kenya with 200 lbs of luggage!

Made it to Kenya.  Had a wonderful visit with Josh & Ruth Barron and their 5 children. I enjoyed meeting the CFM team that that work so closely with.  Today I fly to Kissumu,  where Ms . Vicki will pick me up from the airport.  Wamzy is my sweet driver today.  She is a girl from the Barron's church.

Funny luggage story: Wrangling about 250 lbs total luggage has been interesting.  When i arrived at NBO we exited the plane via stairs.  There was no way i could get all that luggage down the stairs!  Thankfully, there was a good southern boy wearing an LSU hat that volunteered to help carry my luggage down the stairs.  I then had ti gi get the other 150 lbs by myself at baggage claim,  load it onto a cart and go outside to meet the Barron family.   Thankfully,  Josh helped with akl my luggage from that point. On my way back to the airport to catch my flight to Kissumu I was one bag less and 50lbs lighter.  However,  i still had about 200 lbs of luggage.  Wamzy,  the sweet lady driving me today helped me make it across the parking lot and guided me to check in.  I then had to take over all the luggage again.  I took all the bags through security and was thankful to deposit the two larger bags at the baggage check.  That left me with my carry on luggage and my large backpack,  totaling 100lbs. I have a system though... I stack my backpack on top if the rolling suitcase ant it is easy!  If course that was the perfect plan until I had to climb the stairs to board the plane.  Thankfully, a nice gentlemen saw my dilemma and volunteered to help.  As if that wasn't enough, upon boarding the Kenya airways plane for Kissumu my carry on bag would not fit in the overhead compartment. Oh yes!  I was officially the crazy lady with too much luggage.!!  I got a variety of looks. Some people felt sorry for me, some we disgusted and others smirked a grin and tried not to laugh.  I am sure it was comical.  Finally the flight attendant just moved me to another seat. I had one seat for my luggage and one seat for me :).  Thankfully Vicki brought one if the boys to take care if the luggage!!  Praise the Lord!

Worship

Psalm 100:2

New International Version (NIV)

²     Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.

In working with children one of the things I love is how they worship with abandonment.  Nothing holds them back.  They do not care what the people next to them are doing and they each have their own style. You may worship sitting, standing, singing, praying, dancing or even laughing.  In Xtreme kids I have noticed we have wild worshipers, performers, serious worshipers, and the "I'm too cool for this" crew. 

Each week there is a small group of children who are wild worshipers. You will find them hip hop dancing in the back of children's worship. They even dance wildly during the slow songs. Everyone will be singing softly lifting their hands and voices to the Lord and these children are singing and doing the coffee grinder or cartwheels in the back of the room.  It makes me smile knowing they can worship with all their energy.  On a few occasions I have thought about correcting them with the whole "This is a slow worship song speech".  You know the one where children are told "let's stand still or sway during the slow songs".  However, each time I start to head in their direction I am reminded that David danced before the Lord and who am I to tell them how to worship! They are engaged, participating and having a blast worshiping our Savior. Dance on kiddos!

In the front of the room, there is a group of girls that are all about the motions and the words on the screen.  They are the performers putting on a show for Jesus each week. They giggle and dance with each other and interact with the praise team.  They are all glitter, bows and everything frilly.  Along with them are my cool boys!  They enjoy worship and doing the motions and dance moves. Those boys can certainly rock out on the air guitar on every guitar solo during worship (that's when the girls giggle and try to join in the air guitar playing as well).

There are the serious worshipers,  they are contemplating the words of each song as they sing them, raising their hands in praise, eyes closed and totally unaware of anyone around them.  You can just see the praise on their lips and the joy in their souls as they give all their worship to the Lord as a gift they are placing on the alter. No one would dare speak to them or interrupt their worship time.  As a matter of fact, if you tapped one of these serious worshipers on the shoulder to get their attention they would jump in fright because they are so tuned into worship.

The "I'm too cool for this crew", who sits but reads the words on the screen and enjoys watching everyone else around them.  They can fully tell you the meaning behind every song but if they actually had to participate it just might kill them!  Along with them are a handful of boys usually 5th & 6th graders who think they are too cool but realize worship is just so much fun they can't stop.  They stand near the wall with arms folder for the first few minutes but something inside them overtakes their bodies and they begin to worship! However, if they are noticed or "caught" worshiping arms are quickly folded and the cool stance is assumed until once again they just can not contain themselves. They make me laugh and make me sad at the same time.  It is fun knowing they love to worship and just can not contain themselves.  It is sad to know that somewhere along the way their creativity and freedom of worship has been stifled.  Maybe it was a look or a comment from a peer, maybe it is just the awkward age they are experiencing trying to grow into a "cool" teenager but living in a "fun" child's world.  I will often go over and dance near them just to make them laugh!  I tell them "It is okay to have fun in worship, no one is really looking at you!".  

 Worship really gets interesting on weekends when we are invited to go into "Big Church" for a part of worship.  I love taking the kids in with the adults however... I'm not sure the adults would agree.  You see, children are for the most part active worshipers.  Somewhere after the 6th grade there is a decline in how actively engaged you are in worship.  I always ask the adults to stand and participate with us.  Most of them stand, about 5% actually participate.  However, the children rock out for Jesus anyway.  I find this so interesting because a survey taken by the Barna research group stated this:

Worship Was Top-Rated
Upon examining the pillars of faith practice, the survey revealed that three-quarters of all adults, and 92% of all churched adults, said that it is very important to them to worship God. Next most important to adults were the ability to learn about their faith (63%) and to experience moral and spiritual accountability (59%). Slightly more than half of all adults listed serving the needs of the poor as very important (54%). A minority of adults described each of the other four endeavors as very important: sharing their faith with non-believers (44%), feeling like they belong to a community of faith (41%), donating their time and money to the church (39%) and meeting with other believers (39%). 

If worship is top rated why do so many people feel inhibited to worship freely as they enter into adulthood?  How do you worship? More importantly what kind of example of worship are you setting for your children?

Speed bump

Have you ever been driving really slow through a neighborhood when you were suddenly upon a speed bump? At that moment you must either give the car more gas or get out and push your car over the bump in the road. Sometimes in life we hit those speed bumps. We are on the right road but we just need a bit more gas or a little push to get over the trial, the tug in your heart, the addiction, the relationship mending or what ever hurtle you may be facing. 

Here in East Tennessee the January weather is absolutely depressing. Gloomy skies, snow covered grounds and plenty of time to think about what you would like to accomplish for the kingdom in the coming years. Not really a great thing for me. I have discovered if I am lucky enough to live to 80 years old then I have already lived half of my life.  If I died today would God say "well done good and faithful servant"?  Would he say "You gave your all for kingdom sake?"

What about you? Have you lived your life to the fullest for Christ's sake?

Don't misunderstand me. I have a great life. I love working in ministry. We always have a fridge full of food, A closet full of clothing and amenities abound.  But...could we live with less to make a greater impact on the kingdom? I think so. Which brings me to the speed bump. Many Christians, including myself, are happy to just sit on the speed bump and not cross over it. We go to church, we listen to Christian music, we say the right things but ... are we willing to give life a little more gas and make it over the speed bump to the other side where we are doers of the word and not just hears of the word?

Maybe Gandhi said it best while observing Christianity: " I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."  We sit in a world of amenities and look at the hurting, hungry & homeless. Maybe we even pray for them. We put on our Sunday best and then over hear others saying " I can't believe she wore that to Church!"  Hey there self righteous! Let's just be happy they are at church. We eat dinner at restaurants and throw away enough food to feed 12 hungry orphans in Africa. We get chicken in the drive thru for our children and they refuse to eat it because we forgot to ask for barbecue sauce. Hey there ungrateful! You had three meals today! The waste in our lives is excessive while the need in others lives seems so overwhelming. What could you live without? What could you give to someone else who genuinely is in need? Instead of a vacation on a sandy beach or skiing in the mountains, could you hold an orphan child in your arms and tell them about The Lord? Could you spend the week feeding the hungry and helping the homeless?

Give it some gas friends! Get over the January speed bump. Get up, get out and show Christ to a hurting world. You do not have to travel across the ocean to do that. You only have to walk out your front door and be willing to reach out to others.

Fall Fuse retreat

The fall Fuse retreat for our 5th & 6th graders was a blast! We rented Bancroft Bible Camp in kingsport, Tn.  We had a couple decisions for Christ and I had the honor of Baptizing Chloe Puckett! 

We did a great bible study by precepts called "evil".  It was a study of job.  Our guest speakers were Scott & Lynn Kain.  We also had lots of messy games, swimming, hiking, zip line, card games and more.

The Summer Sensation!

As we ended the last school assembly of the 2012-2013 school year in May, I took a deep breath and said "Ahh, Summer is here!"  Lazy days and long afternoons by the pool right?  Guess again.  God had bigger things planned for me this summer.   It started with an amazing Mission trip to Tyler, TX June 13-23 with 28 Middle school students.  We had Missionary training at Teen Mania and then we hit the local parks to do VBS in the mornings and spent the afternoons at the Salvation Army or The Local Food Bank.  Several Children came to know the Lord and our teens learned how to share the gospel & give their testimony!

We drove back to church on Sunday June 23 and I literally unloaded the luggage for our teens and then drove straight to Camp Placid to begin our children's camp for 3rd-6th grade and our day camp for 1st-3rd grade.  Our theme was Gold Rush... discovering the rock of ages.  Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also!  Several more children chose to follow Christ during this time and eight children were baptized in the pool at camp. We had amazing worship.  You could just feel the Spirit of the Lord  hovering in the air as we sang.    It was such a joyous occasion.  Camp ended with many happy memories and a few scrapes from the grass at the end of the slip n' slide:)

I was 16 days in a camp bunk bed either in Texas or Tennessee.  I was thankful for my bed when I crashed that first evening.We had a one week turn around to get camp supplies reorganized in the resource room and pull out the supplies for Worship Arts Camp which began today, July 8!  We are off to a fun week of art, dance, drama, music & science. Worship Arts Camp ends July 12 and 2 weeks later we will be back in the schools for our assemblies.  I can't wait to see all those smiling faces!

Lots of pictures are posted on my Facebook page.  Feel free to stalk them and tag yourselves.

Plenty of stuff happening this fall! Don't miss the fun!

Sleeping with the sharks: fuse 56

Loaded the bus and headed off the ripley's Aquarium. We had a great time of worship & teaching on the bus. We arrived and entered the aquarium only to realize that I left the check for the aquarium in my car in the church parking lot 2 hours away :). Minor detail! No worries we worked it out. Thank you Sandy & Teddy Miller for bringing us the check. We began carrying all the luggage into the aquarium and then realized that we also had the bus driver's luggage. The bus driver and his wife are staying in a hotel in gatlinburg. They did come back to retrieve their luggage. So, it has been a comedy of errors .

The children of course had no idea any of that happened because they were so excited to be at the Aquarium. They quickly made themselves at home in the classroom and began asking questions. We had a pizza snack and then squid dissection. Next then children went on a scavenger hunt in the aquarium followed by a question and answer session in the classroom and instructions for lights out :)

Eventful day!

Finishing March & beginning April

As I reflect on all the activities that have happened since my last post and look forward on my calendar to what the summer will bring, I thank The Lord for the talented, creative & dedicated volunteers who serve each week with me. Their hearts are sold out to The Lord and his love radiates through them. So very blessed to serve with them!!!!!!

We have really been focused on service in the children's ministry this spring with "spring into service". We painted the fence at Holston Home for children & finished up our last month of service for the spring at Salvation Army. The children have loved serving dinner at the Salvation Army!

Our school assemblies have been a blast! The chick-fil-a cow has joined us to wrap up the end of our school assemblies. We have one assembly left in April and two chapels in May at a couple local Christian schools. Our school assemblies will come to a close for the 2012-13 school year after these. I love hanging out with the kids, teachers, staff and principals at these schools. They get it... Core Values are important and vital for a child's success in life. This months value = friendship

I had the honor of being apart of several baptisms on the weekend of April 13-14. I am always excited to see young people chose to obey God and tell the world they love Jesus through baptism. God is so good and I thank Him for each one of the decisions that were made to follow him and commit their lives to him.

We took a fun caving trip to Appalachian caverns after church on Sunday April 21. Relationships were built, new friendships were made and our spelunking skills were put to the test. It was great to know I could fit through a hole the size of a piece of notebook paper 😀 lol!

The spirit of The Lord is really moving at Celebration Church right now. We had a wonderful time of worship last weekend led by our youth band. It was so great because many of the teens playing and singing on stage actually volunteer in children's Ministry. The children loved seeing them serve The Lord through music and worship. They did a fabulous job!

March Whirlwind

It has been a very busy month!  So Busy I could hardly find time to post anything, please forgive me.

We have had several school assemblies this month.  Our good friend Sandy Kneffel and her monkey Kumba joined us as we talked about Honesty using Core essentials.  We have one more school assembly left this month.

Learned way more than I wanted to know about Child Abuse at our teacher training given by the Children's Advocacy Center. I am so thankful for those who serve, protect and advocate on behalf of the children in our communities.
 
Helped remove lice from a sweet family associated with one of our local schools.  

Attended the Food Show in Gatlinburg to pick out food for camp.  I sampled so much food I thought I was going to bust.  I had a great time hanging out with a few ladies that I love to work with, Debbie, Carol & Sandy.  We also made so new friends that work for Reinhart foods and were recruited to help greet and hand out goodie bags with them.  It was a fun time.

Helped Celebrate my Sweet friend Angie Bundy's Birthday. 

The Fuse 56 Retreat: Sleep with the Sharks was lots of fun.  We studied the book of Daniel and learned how to resolve to be like Daniel and live for God!  It was pretty cool watching all the sharks swim above our heads as we drifted off to sleep.

 Enjoyed some girl time and laughs with facials & fondue with a few friends.

Did some major Bible studying in Chattanooga at the Precepts Ministries campus.  I took classes on the Old Testament, The New Testament, Spiritual Gifts & Bible timeline: How the Bible fits together.
My favorite class was Bible timeline, however, my hands may never recover from all the notes I took.  While I was there, Jack Authur, co-founder of Precepts celebrated his birthday and it was a privilege to be there and celebrate with him.

Planned, practiced and costumed with all those acting out the Easter Story for Children's Worship.  We are so very blessed to have such dedicated teens to help teach our children.  I am forever thankful for all those who serve in Children's Ministry and help impart God's word each week.

Met my new friend, Kevin, while serving dinner at the Salvation Army.  Kevin is a sweet soul.  The children had the opportunity to lay hands on him and pray for him as he is trying to figure out God's will for his life.  With the help of a few friends, we found him a place to sleep for the night equipped with a shower and laundry facilities.  He is going to help work at The Branch House, an outreach and recovery center under construction by Celebrating Freedom, tomorrow.  Asking you to lift him up in prayer even as you are reading this.

Whew, I am tired just thinking about all that has happened this month.  I am also so blessed to be apart of all of it.   This week is full of preparation for Easter.  The children at Celebration Church will experience the sights, sounds and smells as the experience "The Jerusalem Marketplace", complete with carpentry, jewelry making, weaving, a scribe shop, bakery and Live animals.  So excited for our children to be able to experience 33 AD as we reenact the Easter Story!

Salvation Army Dinner

Thanks to all those who helped serve dinner at the salvation army last night.  It was great to see some of the same faces we saw last month.  Praying for several of them this morning.  I personally had a super time getting to know a few more people who came last night to eat dinner. 

This song came to mind as I was praying for several of my new friends.  Praying for jobs, housing, healed relationships and clear direction for several of my new friends.

Numbers 13-14

It was a great weekend learning about the 12 spies from Numbers 13-14.  Here is the weekend video in case you were unable to make it.

This is the lesson for 1st-4th grades.  Preschool and 5th & 6th Grade have a different lesson each week.  Just fyi.

Numbers 1-11

Today we began our study of Numbers.  If you missed church or just want to see the lesson again, since we had a bit of technical difficulty with the second video, here they are.

Click here to see the wrap up video

Teen Leader Retreat Part 2 :)

We had lunch in our rooms ... Sandwiches :)  then we headed back down to the conference room to dig into the Word.

We spent a lot of time in Matthew & 1 John examining the foundation for Mercy and Justice, which is Love.  We talked about agape love which in like love in action.  We discussed how the Holy Spirit dwells within us and can lead us to love even the most unlovable people.

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Wow!  Ya think God wants us to LOVE?? The Foundation of mercy and justice is built on Love for God and for others.  We should let love be the motivation for all we do.

After that great teaching, we took a break and hit the water:)

 

After swim time we had a Pizza Dinner followed by more worship and our last teaching, "The Time is Now".   We discusses How to get started living a life of mercy and justice. 1. Begin to identify your spiritual gifts, talents and abilities.

2. Look for those who have needs among those you interact with everyday. 

3. Examine you discretionary money.  You can sponsor a child for $1 a day.

4. Look into serving in church outreach programs and other ministries that fit your gifting.

Our Main mission: to demonstrate mercy and do justice so people will know the goodness and love of Jesus.  It may not be pretty, in fact it is often a dirty job, but you are called to do it.  Let's get dirty :)

 

Teen Leader Retreat

We headed to the wilderness lodge to enjoy some great teaching by Mickey Hummel and Ms. Carletta...lotta :)  We also have had time to enjoy hanging out and swimming with friends this weekend.

When we arrived we ate BBQ, checked in our rooms and hit the swimming pool.  We had late night teaching & worship from 10-12pm.  Jonathan Russell blessed us by leading worship and then we dove into out teaching time.  We had chosen a teen study called " Dirty Jobs".  The study is based on our children's ministry verse Micah 6:8 " And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  Last night we talked about living a life pleasing to God and what that would look like.We determined that WE are the plan to relieve the poor, the needy, and the sick. We're to reach out to those with no friends, those who feel like they don't belong, those who are made fun of and ridiculed, those who are desperate or hungry.  

This morning we explored what Jesus teaches us about doing justice and loving mercy.   " Jesus gets dirty".    He heals the sick, raises the dead, Cleansed the lepers and cast out demons!  
Matthew 9:37 "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Mathew 10:1 "Jesus summoned His disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of sickness"

Peace

We had a great time this month talking about Peace.  It was a challenge to find the Doves, actually homing Pigeons. Special thanks to the American Racing Pigeon Society for helping us find them.

No one has a bigger influence on a child than his or her family!
That's why it's so important to share the values at HOME and at SCHOOL.

This month your child is learning about PEACE in school:
 proving you care more about each other than winning an argument.

We hope you'll enjoy this monthly ezine
(ezine = emailed newsletter!)
and get some ideas for talking about PEACE with your family.

  
Car Time -
Enjoy a song about PEACE while in the car.
Listen to a preview HERE of "Give up the fight." 
It's also easily downloadable to your phone or iPod for $1.39 a
song!

 
Open Wide - Just for Fun:   
What skill do you have that you could use to help someone else?

DISCUSSION STARTER:
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship. Since that time, nearly 200,000 Americans have committed to spending two years in one of 139 host countries. These volunteers work with local governments, communities and schools to meet needs in education, business, information technology, agriculture and the environment. In doing so, they're not only providing training and assistance, but they're promoting international understanding and cooperation.

 
WHAT DO YOU THINK? 
 * Do you know someone who is frequently angry and often in a fight? Do you know someone who almost never gets in a fight? What makes these people different?
* What are some characteristics of people who are peacemakers?
* What are some things you can do on a regular basis to help you become a peace maker rather than a peace breaker?
* How can we help each other stay committed to being peacemakers on a regular basis?

Rest Time - (K-2): The Conquerors by: David McKee; The general of a large and mighty country invades and conquers each of its neighboring countries, one by one. Eventually, all the countries in the world are conquered but one... a country so small it doesn't even have an army. And so, when the day comes that the general is unable to resist invading the small country, the outcome is inevitable. Or is it?

(3-5): One Thousand Paper Cranes: The Story of Sadako and the Children's Peace Statue by: Ishii Takayuki; Ten years after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Sadako Sasaki died as a result of atomic bomb disease. Sadako's determination to fold one thousand paper cranes and her courageous struggle with her illness inspired her classmates. After her death, they started a national campaign to build the Children's Peace Statue to remember Sadako and the many other children who were victims of the Hiroshima bombing. On top of the statue is a girl holding a large crane in her outstretched arms. Today in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, this statue of Sadako is beautifully decorated with thousands of paper cranes given by people throughout the world.

Experience: One of the greatest threats to a peaceful life for your child is bullying. Whether they are involved or not, bullying affects their perception of their environment. Spend some time this month talking about what to do if your child is being bullied, bullying someone, or observes bullying. Come up with a plan for each of these scenarios and talk about the importance of caring about each person enough to stop bullying.