Christian Momma

So I have been spending a lot of time looking for the 2010 VBS’s that are out there.  Do you know there are a lot to choose from?  Choosing is overwhelming me right now.  I will sit down with a group of people from church in a few weeks to talk over the different options that are available to us.

Here’s what I’ve found so far…

Lifeway is offering 2 different VBS’s this year…Saddle Ridge Ranch and Route 254.   Then there’s Group who is offering 2 different ones as well…High Seas Expedition and Egypt; Joseph’s Journey from Prison to Palace.  Answers in Genesis is also offering 2 different VBS’s…Amazon Expedition and Operation Space.  As if those weren’t enough to choose from, Standard is offering Hero HeadQuarter’s….Cokesbury is offering Galactic Blast…Gospel Light is offering SonQuest Rainforest…WordAction is offering Deep Sea Adventure…Concordia Publishing House is offering Planet Zoom…Sunday School Publishing Board is offering Xtreme Spiritual Makeover…Bogard Press is offering Soul Survivors on Danger Island…

I know there are more out there that I haven’t mentioned…but those are the ones that I’m taking a closer look at for the moment.  I will probably look into others after I process all those listed above!

So the question is…How do you choose?  What I’m doing is listing out all the information for each VBS so that I can present it to those who will be helping me choose.  Of course Prayer is the MOST IMPORTANT part of choosing.  Once you decide the reason you have a VBS in your church…the purpose for your VBS, and then through prayer and all the information given about each VBS on their web site, you can start to rule out different curriculums for your church.

I am currently compiling a spreadsheet overview as well as a detailed sheet for each of the above VBS for our church.

Overwhelmed??  Why, yes I am!!

Another year has come and gone with VBS.  At the VBS Finale’ on Friday night, we had a total of 175 children and adults.

After our characters went through the closing ceremony, they handed out prizes for those children who brought a friend….we had so many prizes donated that every child who got their name into the drawing got something!

After the closing, they showed a video slide of all the photos taken at VBS.  It was great seeing all the things that have happened.  Once that was over, everyone filed out to get some ice cream before heading home!

After thinking over VBS, I think my favorite part of the whole program is when the children offered prayers.  Our music leader would ask for a volunteer child to come forward to pray for the whole group into a microphone.  The amount of children raising their hand was so neat to see.  These children were anxious about being the one chosen to come forward.  Yes, they were “fed” the prayer from the music leader, but the point of the whole thing is getting those children used to praying in front of a group of people and being comfortable.  It was just so touching to see them pray!

Today, I have sorted and put away items for this year’s VBS.  Now onto the next task of finding a church willing to purchase/switch VBS programs so we have more room in our storage.  Our set was AWESOME, our decorating committee went above and beyond what Standard told us!

I’m currently compiling my list of things that worked and didn’t work and those who have said they wanted to help out next year.  If God leads me to run VBS again, I will have a head start, however, if it is someone else God wants to lead it, then they would have the head start!!

Day 4 has come and gone.  We ended up with 82 children last night!

You should have seen how crazy it was when 2 of our characters got slimed!  The kids went wild!!!

Finale’ is tonight…if you live around the Northern Cincinnati area, you ought to come check it out!  www.hittheriver.com If you come, let me know, I’ll be the one running around with the clipboard!!

Day 3 has come and gone.  We ended up with 82 children last night!  Things seem to be going a bit smoother, but that’s probably because the Registration table hasn’t had many at it.

The children are having a blast, and you could see last night that they were more comfortable with their crew leaders than the night before.

Day 4 is tonight…if you live around the Northern Cincinnati area, you ought to come check it out!  www.hittheriver.com If you come, let me know, I’ll be the one running around with the clipboard!!

Day 2 has come and gone.  We ended up with 84 children last night!  That’s great!!

The children are having a blast, and you could see last night that they were more comfortable with their crew leaders than the night before.

Day 3 is tonight…if you live around the Northern Cincinnati area, you ought to come check it out!  www.hittheriver.com If you come, let me know, I’ll be the one running around with the clipboard!!

Last night our church ran our first night of VBS.  We are doing Standard Publishing’s Studio Go!

It was crazy at the beginning…but, it went very well.  We had 79 children show up for our 1st day!  Last year at our biggest day we only hit 88 children (by day 4)…I suspect this year will be a lot bigger!!

This year, my job was again to direct VBS, but I have help…I have a co-director and an Elder and his wife to help run it.  Also, we have chosen a good group of Characters to do the opening and closing along with a lot of other wonderful volunteers to run each station!  VBS just doesn’t run without the wonderful volunteers!!

Day 2 is tonight…if you live around the Northern Cincinnati area, you ought to come check it out!  www.hittheriver.com If you come, let me know, I’ll be the one running around with the clipboard!!

I cannot believe that I’ve struggled so much with coming up with something to post.  This never used to be so hard for me.  I would come and post something about my day and that would be it, but now I feel like that’s not what I want to post…I want each post to have meaning.  But, in doing that, I haven’t had posts.  So I guess, they will have to both happen to get me to post more often!

My dad is now home from the hospital, the blood clot is gone…Praise the Lord!!  He is still having issues with his Kidneys.  They are functioning at 22%…which I think is Stage 3 Kidney Failure (Stage 4 is dialysis/transplant level).  That worries me.  My mom and dad have been going through the counseling for this already.  Getting the information they need to know before he gets to that point.  I talked to my neighbor, she’s a Dialysis Nurse at the VA hospital down here.  She is going to get me some information for me.  She used to work at UC Hospital (which is one of the hospitals that the doctor said they would do the transplant at).  She only had good things to say about the transplant wing (is that what they call that?).

So, Kevin and I are looking for a house!  I’m so excited!  We are being a tad picky at what we choose.  We want a 4+ bedroom house, 3 car garage, and a full basement.  We want to have the extra room so that if my dad were to need a transplant down here, they could come and live with us for a time (hence the full basement and the extra garage space).  It’s exciting to see so many houses in our price range!  We originally said we didn’t want to have a pool, however, we have found a few places that offer a pool in our price range…and even lower than our price range…causing us to take a double look at it.  I know foreclosure is bad, and I would never want anyone to go through that, however, us being in the position we are in, we are finding that the foreclosures to be to our benefit!  We don’t own a house right now, we rent, so we are in the best position to get a house right now!

Our church has been going through a lot of changes (or hints of change) here lately.  Sometimes change hurts…some of these changed directly affected me.  God has called us to this church, and I know great things will happen in this church.  Satan has been attacking this church left and right, I can see it.  I have always said that if Satan is trying so hard to take down a church, that something good will come from it.  He wouldn’t attack if we were “luke warm” or “stagnant”.  He attacks when the Kingdom of God is going to advance. We are fighting Satan, not people.  It’s a Spiritual war going on right now.

Our church is doing a church-wide study on Ephesians.  I have learned so much already.  About my prayers and about Church Unity.  It’s awesome that this study comes at a time like this!!

VBS is starting up.  I have neglected it since all the “shake-up” at the church.  Why you ask?  Well, the lady I was working closely with to run VBS is no longer in our church.  That hit me hard, I went through my “I can’t do this” stage and have since came out on the other end with a clearer head.  I have been on my knees speaking with God about direction, I think it’s becoming clearer and clearer as to what I am to do.  I’ve had more offers of help from people that I know would be wonderful helpers!  Thursday, I will be meeting with the Elder that is over VBS to get him caught up and show him what is needed, where we are going and what we are doing, so he can help and get plugged into the position that he should be in.

I can say this post has been a bit of a random “dump”, but I had to get it all out.

God is changing me, molding me into the person He has called me to be.  I’m learning…and one day I’ll get there, with God as my guide!

Wow, I haven’t been updating like I said I would.  Sorry about that!

I have finally started going back to the gym, which I’m so glad…Kevin is too (he pays for it).

This past weekend I went and visited with my dad at the hospital.  He had a clot that ran from his groin to his ankle.  His leg was swollen up and he has been put on blood thinners.  He’s not allowed out of the hospital until he gets rid of this blood clot.  They have him on a heart monitor the whole time, so, even though I’m really worried about him, I’m glad he’s being taken care of at the hospital.  He is up there cracking jokes and talking about different memories.  I’m really glad I got to go see him, even if I did have to leave my husband with 4 sick boys at home.

I have so much things running through my head…the biggest one is VBS right now.  I have to figure out where I need help and schedule a meeting with the Elder who is going to be helping me and lay out a plan with him before scheduling a meeting with the board to discuss how things are going and any changes that have been made since the last meeting.

I have been working harder on getting into the word daily.  I’m not where I should be yet, but I am heading in the right direction.  I sometimes struggle with actually reading something…I have done little things to remind me… I use my outlook to remind me to read devotions daily, I have a “Verse of the Day” on my desk top (Window’s Gadgets), I have a Verse of the Day (2 of them actually) on my Facebook, I have a bible on my phone and a bible in various rooms of my house, I have an email sent to me via Proverbs 31 Ministries each day.  You would think with all those things I it would be easy, but for some reason there’s a sort of disconnect somewhere, but I am truely trying to reconnect.  I would appreciate any prayer covering, so if you feel led to pray for me, please do.

We are house searching right now, which is really exciting!  I haven’t been letting myself get too excited about that, I just don’t want to have my hopes up too high.  I have been praying for this for years though…could this really be an answer to prayers?  The timing…it has to be a God thing for us to move forward.

I hang out on Facebook with so many friends now, I decided to set up my blog on the blog networks on facebook.  We’ll see how that goes.  I know it doesn’t matter how you bring people to your blog, it’s going to take me actually updating to keep people coming.  I’m hoping that I can get into some sort of routine.

Anyway, if you stop by, thank you, I’d love to hear from you.  I do appreciate you reading and following!

2008 has come and gone already.  It sure seemed to go by quickly…sometimes a little too quickly!

January

The year started out with me beginning to work on Power Lab VBS (Ah Ha!).  I was also homeschooling Michael.  We were pretty on top of our schooling and things were going pretty smoothly at the time.  I was also beginning to work in the K-1 Sunday School class room at church.  That, wasn’t going as smoothly as I had wished.

February

VBS started to consume my thoughts.  I was having dreams about not being ready, and just an overwhelming sense that I’ve bitten off more than I could chew.  AKA…I wasn’t relying on God to help me, I was relying on my own strength to do it.

February also brought about Daniel & Andrew’s 3rd birthday as well as my 34th birthday.

Michael entered his first Science Fair and ended up with a Superior rating!  I was proud, but knew full well that if he had applied himself earlier in the month, but he decided to wait until the last minute to do it.  Then we hit a rough patch in our homeschooling…a bad one.  Causing me to question my ability to teach him not to mention my basic parenting skills.  But, through the Grace of God we got through it with help from some friends in our church.

March

March brought in a lot of saddness.  My grandmother’s health begain to fail drastically.  And a friend of mine lost her child in a horrible accident. My heart ached in ways I never knew it would.  Things in me shined trhough as well.  I didn’t realize how “in tune” I was to other’s saddness.  Michael had a meeting with the staff from his online school and things turned out so much better than I had originally anticipated.

April

In April, I took a blogging break…school slipped behind and I had to push Michael to get as much done as possible a day!  Spring seemed to bring out the worst in his schooling abilities and slowly we fell behind.

May

I won this Word Press blog…I’m ever so greatful to Lisa for hosting the giveaway that allowed me to win! The final push to get VBS was upon us.  VBS was scheduled for the 2nd week of June.  My grandmother passed away that month as well.

June

VBS week came and went without too much problems.  Yes, there were a few bumps in the road, but overall things turned out GREAT!  I was elated that things went as well as they did and relieved that it was all over with as well.

July

We celebrated Michael’s 11th birthday in July along with Kevin and I’s 14th wedding anniversary.  In between those 2 events, we threw my mom and dad a 60th Birthday/40th Wedding Anniversary party.  We were very impressed that we were able to pull it off!  Mom and dad had only suspected that we were planning on all going out to eat together, not that we would have all of their friends and family at a hall waiting for their arrival!  We even got one of their friends from High School to travel from Chicago to Ohio to celebrate with them as well!

We also got to see Extreme Makeover Home Edition in our town.  My mother drove down the night before to stay overnight and we headed out to the new house to watch the bus move.  That is a day that was HOT, but I wouldn’t have missed for the world.  To see something like that is a once in a lifetime thing.  Michael still claims to have High-Fived Ty!

August

We went for our 1 and only camping trip of the year.  We had so much fun, and would love to go back to the Michigan Dunes again.  Our church also had a Worship Night.  Something changed in me that night and I have been forever changed!

September

School started right after Labor Day!  We decided to send Michael back to public school since things weren’t working out the best for us at home.  We are happy to report that he is doing wonderful in the public school!

We celebrated Noah’s 8th birthday in September.  We also found out that an eight year old child, when given $20 in cash and not watched very closely at the grocery store (because mom and dad were busy ringing/bagging groceries), will spend the whole $20 on lottery tickets!  And before you ask…YES it’s illegal for him to purchase them, but when they have a “vending machine” of lottery tickets just sitting over by the bubble gum machines, it’s just calling for a child to play with it!  And he only wond $2!

October

In October, Kevin and I started going to a new Bible Study.  I was elated that Kevin wanted to go to one since he has never really showed any interest in going before.

We also walked, for the first time, in the JDRF Walk for a Cure for my Niece.  We were so proud of her, she ended up getting 2 awards…one for the amount of money raised and the other for the T-Shirt design!

November

We celebrated Kevin’s 38th birthday.  How?  Well, I went to a Arbone party and he watched football…now that’s love!

We had our traditional weekend after Thanksgiving shopping adventure.  My parents’ took Michael, Noah, Daniel, & Andrew for the weekend (it ended up my parents had Daniel & Andrew and my sister had Michael & Noah).  We always enjoy that weekend away from the boys.  It’s nice to pretend we are childless…even if it’s just for the weekend!  But we are always so excited when they return.

December

We spent most of the month either running from Christmas Program to Christmas Program or from Christmas to Christmas.  However this year it seemed to be a little less travel than usual.  We only spent 1 night up at my parent’s house and we actually had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home for the first time in a long time!

For 2009, I’m sure there will be new things that God shows us along the way, new challenges to overcome and new friends to meet, but I trust that God will be joining us along this journey and we will rest in the knowledge of Him.

Last night was our VBS Finale’! It went GREAT! We had those big blow up jumpy things (yeah…I don’t know what they are called), a tent for dinner, and a cotton candy machine!

I didn’t get a chance to eat…I had so much stuff I had to do…so much running from inside and out! When I got inside, they were having trouble with the cotton candy machine and since I was the only sucker one to learn how to run it, I had to go over and actually work the machine! I had cotton candy EVERYWHERE! I went home singing…I’m hot, sticky, sweet, from my head to my feet

Anyway, the children LOVED everything, I only heard good comments from parents and kids were asking where they could go for the next Power Lab!!

My staff…what can I say about a wonderful group of men and women who pour their whole heart and soul into doing God’s work. They were great, I couldn’t have run the week without them!