It’s like Where’s Waldo. Except I’m on the page over and over and over…
Today in worship, we had an intergenerational service. So, my kids were up front at craft tables for the whole event. Their job today was to draw portraits. One self portrait and then pictures of other people in the church. Geo created a great poster with all their pieces that our congregation then used as part of our community prayer time.
They did an amazing job! I just snapped this photo in very poor light this afternoon. I should go back and grab better pictures: because they did such a lovely job creating their self portraits and drawing members of the congregation.
But, sometimes I forget things. And in the process of leading the service today ( a service that was going to run WAY OVER!), I completely forgot to suggest that they not ALL draw portraits of me.
Um, yeah, so according to our poster there are at least 6 people named Wende in our church. Though, none of them look alike!
D’oh.
It’s was really sweet — and touching to see my reflection from so many different hands and my name spelled so many different ways! This usually happens with the littles: all the little kids want to give something to the teacher. But I was shocked to see my teenagers had also made a big deal of putting up my picture. (tho, I’m not completely certain about their motivations: teenagers, you can never tell.)
There were also duplicates of several parents: and one “family portrait” drawn by a middle schooler who omitted her older sister and younger brother. After church when I said, “Um, you seem to be missing siblings,” she gleefully said, “I KNOW!”
I’m kicking myself for having us glue these things onto paper. So, I’m going to have to find a new way of doing this project again so we can make presents for our parents. Maybe next Christmas?
I’m wiped out. But in the best way possible. I spent most of the day in ministry with the kids of our church. Sunday School, an after church event, and Youth Group. There are LOTS of photos of our day over on our Facebook page: but I wanted to post these photos of our after church project.
Our church likes to hold its Church Council meetings once a month on Sunday’s after the service. I’m not a fan. For so many reasons, but a big one being that our kids are left to their own devices while this meeting goes on. Parents who attend have to pop in and out to check on their children — which can be frustrating. So, I decided I’d do something about that this month. We had so much fun today, I think I’ll keep doing something about it until our Church catches on that maybe council meetings might be something we do on another day.
Only a few kids stayed, but we had a quick Easter Egg hunt in our Sunday School classroom. In the eggs, I had hidden a puzzle (along with a wee bit of candy) explaining our project: to build towers as tall as we could with marshmallows and toothpicks.
So much fun. So much sticky fun! The meeting ended after about 40 minutes and my kids were still hard at work–we stayed as long as we could and when it was time to go, I asked Geo, “Are you done?” and he said, “Oh, Mom, I don’t think I’ll ever be finished!”
I gave a bag of mini marshmallows and a box of 250 toothpicks to each team. When we do it again, I’ll provide more toothpicks! Learning curve. 😀 But otherwise, we had so much fun.
My favorite line of the day came from the 9 year old in the room, on the “men” team. (His designation — We’re young men) “Men don’t eat marshmallows, they build with them.” And then 10 minutes later I caught him popping marshmallows on the sly. “These are the first three, I swear.” Ha!
So now you know. In case you were wondering what men do with marshmallows.
None this has a bit to do with Jesus. But my son said something pretty amazing to me on the way to youth group tonight, he said, “You know mom, just creating a safe space where kids can be together is sacred.”
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Sometimes, I spin the Youth Minister plate… HARD! (And of course, that means poor IZ spins along with me.) After too many hours and nearly a year of work, it’s official: we have a ping-pong table in the room and we’re painted. And now, I need to stop. Seriously, I’ve been saying it’s “done” for 2 weeks now and keep finding more things to do.
This is our meeting room: where we share our highs and lows. Eventually, I want to get those chairs covered and add some squishy bean bags.
Looks like I might need to work on the blackboard a bit. You have to prime it with white chalk before using it: and I ran out so I faked it. But new chalk arrived today, so a little touch up is order. (plus, it’s not the best wall, but I’m hoping the lights IZ so graciously put up for us will help!)
Yeah, totally stole this from Pinterest. The walls in the room are so wild. Apparently, at one point a good 20+ years ago someone wall-papered with newsprint!
The floor is a bit slippery and not level, so I taped down our rugs with bright orange Duck tape.
This is the Game Room side. Our room can be divided by accordion doors, but we never do it. However, I thought it was a good idea to do each side a bit differently.
A huge shout-out to the lovely IZ for disassembling the ping pong table and putting it back together. We’re missing a net, but it’s a great table that someone gifted us!
Also pilfered this idea from Pinterest. I used washi tape to make plus signs on the wall. Um. Work. This is a little loft the kids love to sit in and I felt like it needed something “extra”. Again, eventually I’d like new bean bags in grey. I’m planning on doing a “post it prayer” wall on the right hand wall. So, we’ll have a bit more color eventually! I don’t think the ball game thing will stay.
Another chalkboard wall and a bit of colorful Scripture for the room!
I cannot wait for the kids to get to use this on Sunday. Space is everything, no? And considering we did this on such a shoe string budget, I think the room turned out!
And so that you have some idea of what it looked like before, here is a before photo (under the fold, because MEH)
