A Month in the Life

I love creative people! Unfortunately, I am not one of them. I can take other peoples ideas and implement them, but to actually come up with the idea--I would probably fall asleep trying to do so. I love the movie Mary Poppins because there is nothing like it. I mean who comes up with the idea that if we sing a song and snap our fingers, we can clean up a whole room, or say a few words and jump into a picture and be wherever we want to be or have a tea party on the ceiling! I'm not a huge fan of art, but I do like graphics and shots of real people. Working at Gateway, I was able to work with one of the best designers ever, even if he is a Canadian. All I had to do was tell him what our theme was and he would come up with something more than we ever imagined that totally captured the message we wanted to convey. It was amazing...I never once had to tell him I didn't like his work! He was creative and used that to shape the kingdom of God.

There are other people out there that are heroes of creativity--those working with kids' prayer. This weekend, we had our prayer summit at church and I was privileged to be a part of the kids' summit as we brought some of the bus kids. Our kids' prayer leaders never cease to amaze me with their ingenious ways of getting kids to pray. Here are a few things I saw this weekend: M&M prayers to pray for different groups of people (i.e. unreligious, orphans, tribal, etc.), coins to pray for our families' finances, the poor, and the church's finances (a few kids had trouble coming up with something for this one, so I suggested they pray for enough money to buy a bus to bring more kids to church--not a manipulative leader at all!), puppets representing different jobs to pray for, handcuffs to pray for freedom from the past, addictions, etc., oriental fans to pray for China, globe squeeze balls to pray for the people of the world, magnifying glasses, toy soldiers, clackers, and the list goes on. It was really amazing and the kids were totally excited and left with a bag full of prayer tools! I was able to hear a couple of our bus kids pray for the first time. Some of them even volunteered to pray in front of everyone which was a huge step. As they spent time learning about hearing God's voice and putting it into action, they drew pictures of what God had said to them. One of the girls drew a picture of a rainbow and herself, which represents God's promises. Another child had the same picture, yet they were sitting on the opposite sides of the room! It was really an eyeopening weekend for me and also helped me realize how the smallest thing could be used to teach prayer. And I realized that I missed out as a kid not having these people to teach me to pray! These kids are blessed to be growing up, learning how to pray at a young age, and learning how to pray so many different ways and for so many different things.

Another exciting thing was seeing one of our kids "Jordan Jr." make friends with another boy. This is one of the key issues for our success in making these kids truly feel a part of the church. A lot of times they don't make friends easily because they are only there once a week, don't have the opportunity to go to each other's houses, and because they are different in a lot of ways. I watched as "Jordan Jr." imitated everything the other boy did and followed him everywhere. By the end of the weekend, I saw them putting their arms around each other's shoulders and they were calling each other "brother". The other little boy even decided to ride on the van with us to take the kids home. It brought tears to my eyes.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!