Looking ahead, getting excited

This week I finished working on the plans for the Mid High Ministries for the fall . What does this mean you ask? Well, I figured out what we're going to do on Wednesday nights at LifeStream (it's all about Jesus for the first session); what we'll talk about and do during Breakfast Club on Sunday mornings (Truth and Dare..... hmmm); how we'll participate in corporate worship (I'm thinking skit in October); what mission opportunities we'll take (something every month!); and, of course, what fellowship events (fun! fun! fun!)

I've really been working at this much of the summer. I like to find opportunities that will be not just fun but will help you grow in your faith. I've been reading books, and blogs, and articles, and comments about different youth programs. Next week I'll talk about my ideas with the Youth Ministry Team, and then I'll firm some things up. I think you'll like what I have planned. But you know, I'm always open to suggestion.....

Got a Minute?

It's been a little while since I posted a link to Jason Alexander's "Taking a Minute" site.

As a parent, I liked this message. As a daughter, I also liked this message.

Listen to it here.


Even though I'm a grown woman, I still listen to my dad's advice. He's older, wiser, and he loves me and cares for me and wants the best for me. I'm sure your parents feel the same way...

Pool Party Photos

Here they are!

This is the link to the pictures that Diana Noble took click here


This is the link to the pictures that I took click here

Thank God for the great weather and the extra excitement of the Blue Angels flying in formation overhead.

Pictures!!

Here are links to the pictures from the mission trip.

Youthworks fun and fellowship

Village Gardens

Goodwill

CP Center and field trip to Lambeau Field

Chicago Museum of Science and Industry on the way home


Enjoy!!

Last Day

Last Day….

We woke up tired and sad that it was our last day. The week had gone by so fast. We were still making new friends both at our ministry sites and with the kids from other churches who are here.. At our devotional time (devo) in the morning we talked about how we could make our last day here the best.

The Green Monkeys were excited about visiting a new ministry site today. No more sorting, sorting, sorting (did I mention they did a lot of sorting) at the Goodwill. Today they were going to the CP (cerebral palsy) center to work. They were a little nervous, as most of them had no experience with people with CP. They weren’t sure how uncomfortable they might feel around people with this sort of disability. Their fears were short though. As soon as they got to the center, they got a tour and orientation. They found out that all of the people they’d be working with would be teenagers and they would be going on a field trip with them. They met up with the group at Lambeau Field for lunch and a private tour of the facility. Keith and Dave (the other adult in the Green Monkeys group) were excited about that. They had a terrific tour with the clients of the CP center, then went back to the center for some fun and games with them. They became comfortable fairly quickly, and were sad they only had one day there. They will tell you more about that when they share in worship this Sunday and Next Sunday.

The Silver Snakes spent their last day at Village Gardens in a variety of ways. Breaking into groups playing Scattergories at the beginning of the day led to an outing at a local park for lunch and a band concert with some residents. We came back and weeded and did some paperwork until it was time for the afternoon social (popsicles!) and our goodbyes. That was the hardest part. We felt like we really got to know many of the residents and staff there and we’d really miss them. We took pictures to remember them, and we gave them a gift for their garden so they’d remember us. That place really touched our hearts this week, and we hope we were able to show God’s love while we were there.

Thursday evening we had a community cookout. Many people from the Youthworks ministry sites were there enjoying hamburgers and hot dogs. People came from the Salvation Army, Paul’s Pantry (food pantry) Boys and Girls club, Village Gardens (3 of the recreation therapy staff we’d been working with) and other ministry sites. It was a nice way to end the week, chatting with our new friends and seeing how many people Youthworks groups impact during the week. God's love sure was being spread around.

Thursday night’s Club included a foot washing experience. The Youthworks staff wash the feet of and pray over the adult leaders, who, in turn, wash the feet of and pray over each of our kids. It was an incredibly moving and meaningful experience. We were also pleased and honored to be invited to join another of the visiting groups from Minnesota for communion after the foot washing. It was a beautifully spiritual evening.

Friday morning, we were up early after very little rest to pack up clean up and head out. Lots of hugs and email address exchanges went on before we loaded up and took off for home with a stop in Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry along the way. (No time for me to drive to Starbucks before breakfast to post a blog entry.)

All in all, it was an amazing week. I was impressed, surprised, uplifted, encouraged, moved, and pleased with the Geneva Mid-Highs. They are a terrific group of kids with very loving hearts filled with God’s spirit. His love poured out of them this week. If you see Lauren, Amanda, Madelyn, Billy, Marilyn, Beth, or Steven, or Keith I’m sure they would love to tell you their story and where they saw God working in Green Bay.

We’ll be sharing a little bit in church on July 5 and July 12 and I’ll be posting more pictures soon, so keep posted.

Thanks for your support and prayers.

Wednesday - This one is long!

I’m writing this during free time, before I have to go to dinner duty, but I won’t be posting it till I run out to the Starbucks Thursday Morning. Keep this in mind as you read this.

This morning after devotionals the Green Monkeys went back to Goodwill for their last day there. I know they weren’t necessarily looking forward to another day of sorting shoes and tagging items, but again, I didn’t hear any complaints. When we met back up at the showers, they looked a little more tired than usual. I think they were amazed that there would ever be that much sorting and tagging and it seemed never ending. They are definitely looking forward to doing something new tomorrow.

The Silver Snakes washed windows all morning at Village Gardens. Some of us were outside and some of us stayed inside. This was a little tricky as we had to maneuver around beds, dressers, chairs and other furniture. Each room had 4 panes of glass to wash on the inside and 4 on the outside. Steven and Billy worked together as a team, with Billy spraying and Steven using the squeegee. I wiped the bottoms of the windows. Madelyn and Lauren washed the outsides with Allison, one of the Youthworks staff who came to join us for the day. They did a swift job of it.

After lunch, Billy and I put up the big calendar for July in the hallway while Steven, Lauren and Madelyn did some paperwork for the recreation staff. Then it was Karaoke time! The kids helped the residents sing along to old standards they had never heard of. The tried very hard to sing songs like “In the Good Old Summertime,” Bicycle Built For Two,” and “Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye.” They They even learned “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” Steven did an awesome job on the microphone singing Johnny Cash songs which made one resident really smile. The kids also all got together and sang “Awesome God.” We finished the day at the nursing home enjoying Root Beer floats during their social hour.

On Monday when we came the kids all held back and were afraid to talk to the residents. Now they are going right up to some of them and smiling and saying hello, calling them by name. As much as I tried to tell them they’d get used to it, they weren’t sure. I think they’ve come so far in these three short days.

Both groups of 2 kids are working so well together, jumping right in where needed and supporting each other all the time. Each free time they are playing with kids from other churches and hanging out and making new friends. One of their favorite things to do is play ball tag on the play structure at the church. I think this trip is going to be one they remember always. They are thinking about their other Geneva Mid-High friends back home who weren’t able to come on the trip and wishing they were here too.

Tonight, we go to an amusement park after dinner. The kids are really looking forward to hanging out and just having fun.

The kids want to help me blog this week. They’ve taken some of their free time to write.

Here are some thoughts from Madelyn…
Hello everyone, Madelyn here!
I just wanted you all to know, A DEER ATE OUT OF MY HAND!!!! Which is my favorite animal EVER! Also today at the seniors center, we did karaoke and as much as I was looking forward to it, Lauren was not at all! But I got her to sing about 4 songs with me, and Steven sang “Ring of fire”!
Chortle-Chortle!!!!!
So that’s really all I wanted to say, See you Friday!!!!!!


This is Beth…
Hey guys! I’m like really tired right now, but whatever. On Monday my crew and I went to Goodwill. I was really looking forward to it because the last time I came to Green Bay on mission trip, I got to work in a thrift store sorting donations. Goodwill was nothing like I had expected it to be! Everyone was really nice and helped us understand what we were doing, to make sure that it would turn out the way that they wanted it to, in size then color order. On Monday, they asked us where we wanted to work, Marilyn and I got stuck with shoes, because it was the last job open for us. It was truly the most fun of all the jobs!!! It was probably unwise of them to stick us in aisles of shoes, that by the way were very cute, for almost three hours straight. We enjoyed showing each other the really cute and the odd/ugly shoes!
On Tuesday we went through rack after rack after rack after rack of shirts and pants in both men and women’s clothes…. Soooo tedious, and we were on our feet all day except our hour and a half total break. After a while we almost collapsed on the floor out of exhaustion, joking that if we had gotten ten more minutes of sleep, we would have the energy to finish the rack we were on… :D
Today we spent the vast majority of our time putting clothes on hangers, then sizing the clothes. Soooo obnoxious!!!!! We had to figure out whether they were women’s, men’s, or children’s clothes, then hang them, then size them correctly for pants/shirts, on the correctly priced hanger… when we finally got a break I literally collapsed onto the floor, and almost fell asleep, but Marilyn and Amanda were playing with my head and screaming discoveries of freckles on my scalp… :D Tonight we’re going to an amusement park since it doesn’t look like it’ll rain in the coming hours… see you all Friday!!!


And…
Peace out, everyone! Bet you can already guess who this is…hahahaha….IT’S AMANDAAAAA!!! =^.^= Today is day tres!!! Unfortunately, Beth pretty much said everything I wanted to say, but I will do my best!!
ANYWAYYYY, this is MY view of the past half-week…
First, we rode 7 and one half hours in a CAR!! And passed a time zone!! Gaining a whole HOUR!!! OH MY GOSHHHHH!! We ate at Subway…and…stuff…And listened to the best band ever, They Might Be Giants in Nancy’s car, where Beth, Steven, and Marilyn were amazed that I had memorized pretty much the whole of most of the songs.
On the first night, we…ate…crud. I can’t remember what we ate…(Beth! What did we eat the first night?!! (food? It wasn’t spaghetti….sloppy joes. Untidy Josephs.))
WE HAVE HAD SANDWICHS EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR LUNCH!!! GRAHHHHHH!!! THIS ANGERS ME DEEPLY, THOUGH, SINCE I’M A CARNIVORE WHO ONLY EATS FRUITS THAT FELL NATURALLY!! MWUAHAHAHHAHAA!!
Beth, Marilyn, Mr. Marilyn’s dad, and 3 people from a different church in Minnesota; Haylee, Sam, and Dave/George/Alfred/Aaron and I were assigned to the Goodwill store. Goodwill has 2 O’s tied together.
On the first day, we got a tour from Andy, the lovely manager who had gone to Goodwill in search of a steadier market than selling Subaru’s. After that, Marilyn and Beth were in charge of shoes (an unwise decision, if I may say so…) (along with Dave), I don’t really remember where Sam was…and Mr. McBain, Haylee, and I were working together, going through the racks and racks and racks and racks of women’s clothes, sorting them by size, and then color and pulling out all the ones with pink tags on them. We would then take the pink-tagged apparel and put clearance stickers on them, replacing the original clearances (which would be brought to the ‘back room’ and recycled) with them.
We ate spaghetti! ☺ On the second day, we continued with our Good Willy duties, though Sam and I were in charge of shoes. (Muwahahaha… I wonder why???) It took about 1 hour for me to sort the lovely “special” shoes on the “special” rack. I had to sort them by size and then rainbow color. I then had to sort through the CHILD’S special rack. (OooooH!!) And I have learned from the last three days at Goodwill that there are some really strange things you will see. We saw small children crawling through clothes racks and disappearing, never to be seen again, children attacking us with squirt guns, and Bob the Builder bowls randomly left in the dresses section.
We developed a wonderful bond with the various workers there.
Today was our last day there, and though I’m glad I won’t have to sort more clothes,
All in all, it was a great week! ;)




Keep praying for us.

Tuesday

I forgot to mention our clean up duties yesterday. The Green Monkeys had to wake up extra early to prepare breakfast and set out the lunch stuff for us. The Silver Snakes had bathroom cleanup after breakfast. Luckily, since we had boys in our group they could clean the boys bathrooms and the girls could clean the less messy girls’ bathrooms. Lauren says, “mention I even cleaned bathrooms!”

The nursing center that the Silver Snakes are working at has beautiful gardens in the back. Ten years ago it was all grass a small amount of cement patio. Now, there are different sections with raised vegetable gardens, a strawberry patch, pumpkins and tomatoes. There is an area with a small train running through and miniature houses. There are flowers everywhere. The seniors love going out there as much as possible and they are extremely proud of it.

Here are some thoughts from Marilyn on Tuesday morning before we left for our workday:

“Like Nancy probably already said, I am in the group the Green Monkeys, and we work at Goodwill. At Goodwill, there are racks and racks of clothes all sorted by size and color. Beth and I worked in the shoe department yesterday, and the shoes are also sorted by size and color. It was fun working with the shoes and the clothes because there are some strange garments there. What I did was sort big shopping carts full of shoes into the right shelf. I’m tired, but it was fun.”

As I’m writing this it’s late Tuesday afternoon. We just got back from visiting the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. I’m not sure how much the kids enjoyed it but Keith and I sure did. The history of the Packers is actually quite interesting. Dinner is being prepared now, we’ll do “Club” (worship, singing, lesson, group activities) then our church group time.

The Green Monkeys went back to Goodwill today and worked hard; sorting more shoes, and tagging more clothes. In the afternoon they were given some big boxes to put price tags on and were finished in record time. The people at Goodwill thought it would take them all afternoon. Amanda, Marilyn and Beth are actually having fun working so hard… who’da thought?

The Silver Snakes played Outburst this morning with the seniors at the nursing center. We also weeded for an hour before lunch. After lunch we went on a field trip! We accompanied 6 residents of the center and one of the recreation directors to Bay Beach Wildlife preserve. We pushed and pulled residents in wheelchairs up hills and down hills. We saw some animals and walked some nature trails. Madelyn actually had a deer eating from some corn in her hand. She was super excited. We were sad when we had to leave to go shower.

I’m enjoying seeing the kids make friends with kids form other churches. They aren’t too shy this year and are venturing out a bit. Tonight I am telling them not more than 2 kids from Geneva at a table… we’ll see how that goes. I’m also impressed with their insights and thoughtfulness during our church group time. They aren’t afraid to reflect and share about themselves at the end of the day.

Our kids have such serving spirits. They don’t complain when given a task, or asked to pitch in. They are willing to help and are full of God’s love. I haven’t heard any whining. Of course, maybe they are doing that when I’m not around, but I really don’t think so, I haven’t heard any grumbling underneath their breaths. I hope their willing attitudes continue for the next two days of our service here.

Continue to pray for us.