Saturday, October 29, 2005
So many changes since I last wrote! Where to start? One of the biggest is that The NoteBored has a new home. www.notebored.com/board. The young man who had sponsored us during our fledgling beginning shut down his server space and it was necessary to move onto our own home. It was good timing for us in that we had grown large enough to warrant it and his sheltering of us until this move was wonderful of him. I am very grateful indeed.
The daycare business has it’s own domain now as well, look for it at http://www.rittsend.com/.
It’s been a while since I last wrote, been sick, been coding for the new site (yet to be revealed css powered index page for the notebored) and been busy as the daycare has grown, nearly doubling in clients and time reserved on my drop in daycare calendar. So, I am sorry for the long silence (to those few who really do look me up to find out what’s going on, and not the ones who speed by my blog from Blog Explosion or the half dozen other Blog Exchanges that I am part of.) And a special thanks to Lindsey who kicked me in the butt to update. And another thank you to Joy who has been standing in for me and keeping the challenges running. I am so painfully behind on the TriMo challenge… but resolved to keep at it. Don’t give up on me!
I have a new laptop and wifi ability, so as we speak, I am typing from the comfort of my bed, feet under the electric blanket. (It’s cold these last few days!) So I have been spending a great deal of time transferring over programs and documents and setting up my preferences.
At church we are doing the Beatitudes in Sunday school and the Sermon on the Mount throughout this semester. It’s been good! The kids are responding and showing a fantastic ability to take what they are learning and applying it to their everyday situations. It’s humbling when you talk about mourning and entering into another persons grief, what it’s purpose is and how it changes you – and then that very week the kids in our community are dealing with a high school student who hung himself … the sheer force of emotion that hits you when you actively involve yourself into another person’s pain.
Our first group activity was to a corn maze. We were astonished at the “cuts” that had been broken through the maze. We came to it late in the season I suppose because the short cuts were as beaten down and wide as the main paths. They supplied us with maps, but they quickly became confusing and useless in some cases because of those shortcuts. Afterward we spent time talking about the spiritual parallels in our life where right and wrong paths had been blurred. It was mostly a theoretical conversation until my husband helped to tie it down into a place where most of them could relate. Ripping CD’s DVD’s and software. Most of them had pirated copies and accepted pirated copies for their own collections all of their lives. They honestly didn’t know where the boundaries were.
Bang!
Suddenly a trip to a corn maze on a youth group event made an impact on the linkage between belief and action… (Praxis, in the greek) Several of the kids, after grasping that it was wrong, made public confessions to change their behavior.
I love middle school kids. They are at the age when they are taking the faith of their parents and are examining it for themselves. Do they believe it? What does it look like on them? Can they have their own faith that stands outside of their parents and will they be taken seriously? Can they stand separate from the world and still be accepted by their peer group? These are powerful forces that are shaping todays kids, and they are doing it without the social protection that some of us oldtimers had.
just deleted about three paragraphs of ranting about specifically how hostile this world is toward our kids. One day I will be able to say it without sounding as though I am ranting, but it boils in me just below the surface. The Momma Bear in me is riled and fiercely protective of our kids… *sigh* I won’t apologize for it but I will temper it for another time
We also met together (jr and sr high in joint service) to worship together in drama and song… actually we had a skit, a concert and time of quiet reflection where we confessed the things that prey on us, our fears. Then we broke into small groups and prayed together. It was very awesome!
I sense the Holy Spirit is moving and doing a new thing. There is a revival within our congregation locally and also globally as I talk to other believers about what He is doing in their communities. I strongly feel the call for the believers to stay awake… The Bridegroom approaches!
So, what else is going on here? I am becoming more and more involved with the familes that bring me their children. The stories of their life as I get them in those little snippits between pick up and drop offs… I won’t relay them to you, because It’s not my story to tell, but I pray for them, that while I am ministering to them through the care of their children, the Holy Spirit would also be preparing the soil of their hearts; that they would come to a place where they are ready to enter into a dialoge with Christ. Some of them have lives that are saturated in pain and every day is an effort of will to find something in it to cherish. Most often, their bright spot, that one thing that is more important than the job or any other interpersonal relationship is their kids. And that puts me in a very effective place to make an impact. No, I am not vocal about Jesus with them, we don’t pray before snacks or lunch, I don’t use that opportunity to educate them on Christianity. That would be deceptive and unethical.
What I do, is teach them how to share, how to honor one another, how to be respectful even when angry or provoked. I teach them tenderness and most of all, that their mommies and daddies love them beyond reason and miss them terribly when they have to go to work. This is my ministry to that family.
Then, one day it is my hope that they ask me the question… what makes it different at my house than any place else they know? Then I will have an answer ready for them, one that they will (hopefully) be prepared to hear.
Well, here is where I need to stop for a while. I have a lesson to prepare and an e-mail to Lindsey to reply to…
Thank you for spending part of your day with me.
Sometimes it's nice to see life from someone else's point of view. I am a mother, writer and amateur photographer. This is what the view looks like from where I am standing.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
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