A Month in the Life

So last night, I discovered a new place that I will probably frequent often. It's called Brunswick Zone and has bowling (totally smoke free place), laser tag, all kinds of games, and a totally fun atmosphere. Now, I can't bowl to save my life, but thankfully there were a couple of people in my group even worse than I to make me look good! I am a very competitive person and was cracking up when a couple of the girls said they were going to get bumpers for our lane because they kept getting gutters. The thought has never crossed my mind to get bumpers--I want to win of my accord (which takes a miracle).

Yesterday was my darling's last day at school. We had a little party for her and the kids all wrote letters and brought in gifts. A lot of them have been together since preschool, so it was tough on them and there were kids crying all day. I did good until I gave her a hug goodbye and she started crying which made me cry. The kids' prayer requests that day centered around her being able to come back to school, which was very sweet. The kids were also very considerate and whatever she wanted to do all day, she got to do. The only good thing about losing a student is that the classroom desks can be shaped into a "U" now that we're one short. I'd rather have my student back though.

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Okay, so you've heard me talk a lot about bus ministry and probably think that's my favorite thing in the world, but how wrong can you be?!! There's one thing that I will probably always be involved in at some level during my life no matter where I go and that is Bible quizzing. I'm very passionate about the program. Do I always like how everything is done in quizzing--no, but I do love the overall idea of it and the fact that kids spend their time studying the Word of God. I quizzed for 6 years and have coached the last 10 years at both the junior and senior level.

Probably the reason I am most passionate about quizzing is because as a teenager I watched my whole youth group, one by one, walk away from God. When I was praying about it at the time, I asked God what I could do to keep from walking down that same path and He said, "Know my Word and love my Word". At the time, I hadn't ever put forth effort into my quizzing, but that changed from that time on. I spent every hour possible on my quizzing, got up at 5 a.m., studied on the school bus and during study hall, kept my cards with me for when my classwork was finished early, etc. It became one of my life's obsessions.

One of the coolest things about it was that all of my public school friends wanted to help me with my quizzing. So as they are listening to me quote all the Pentecostal doctrine verses, they start asking questions and I get to explain about oneness, the Holy Ghost, and just God in general. Those cards became my greatest witnessing tool during my teen years. Most people would say you gave up a lot to spend that much time and in reality, I didn't. It was a choice I made and I had to get up a little earlier, but I was still involved in all the school stuff (band, class officer, student council, yearbook, SADD, scholastic bowl) and everything at church, plus took 3 different music lessons and practiced a couple of hours a day on all the music stuff. My dad did not approve of quizzing and did not want me doing it, so I couldn't give up all the other "important" stuff. I just made a decision that it was important to God, so it needed to be important to me.

It's hard as a coach though 'cause sometimes you get irritated with your kids because you know what they are capable of and how they spend their time and you just want to wring their necks slowly but surely. My kids know I love them though and each year that I've coached this group, I've started adding more and more responsibility to them each year. It's a different ballgame today with quizzing and I'm hoping that the quizzing ranks will someday make a few changes. I think they need to take into consideration that most teens have to work now, have to do all kinds of volunteer stuff, be a part of x amount of clubs, plus do all the youth group stuff and all the other church ministries, and most of that is just so they can get a good scholarship for college. It's just not realistic that they can spend 2-3 hours a day every day studying and in order to compete, that is what has to happen.

Quizzing numbers have dwindled over the last few years (especially since the buzzer change--took away half the fun!) and I think a lot of it is just because quizzing has not changed with the times. Now a lot of the "old-timers" are out there saying, in my day we learned 900 verses; these kids have it easy with 500...that's not an easy number and the number of teams/quizzers in seniors has dropped, the number of quality teams is down, and a lot of times, in making the change from the jr. to sr. level, you hear a lot of talk about the bad attitudes. My opinion--cut back the number of verses, let the focus be on the real goal of quizzing (Learn, love, live the Word--get it in your heart and let it show), and have fun with it.

Just a little rampage...I really do love the program and if it were not for quizzing, I would not be who I am today and have no doubt that I would not be living for God if it had not been for the love for the Truth that was planted in my as a teenager.

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

Ice cream is the greatest invention of all time and my absolute favorite food! Growing up, it was not uncommon for me to get up and eat a bowl or two of ice cream before I even ate breakfast. I know, you all probably think I have horrible parents, after all, who lets their kid eat ice cream at 6 o'clock in the morning? Honestly, my parents were laid back with all of that stuff. We were kind of spoiled when it came to food! If we didn't like what mom was fixing for dinner, she would make a whole different meal for us! She often made 3 or 4 different meals for dinner just to accomodate all of our different taste buds and still does this when we have family get togethers. She wanted all of us to be happy. I had a horrible time when I came to Gateway because I had pretty much only eaten mom's cooking my entire life. Chef was fancy and put all these strange sauces on my food and cooked vegetables and I didn't like any of it so I had a McDonald's happy meal almost every day. I didn't even like bbq sauce until recently. I now will eat a lot of stuff, but people say I'm still picky (after all, I don't like chocolate, beans, rice, most cooked vegetables, most sweet stuff...).

Anyway, back to ice cream, I'm craving the stuff right now, but it's so cold I don't want to step outside to go get some. Ice cream has been there for me through the good times and the bad. I've had lots of pity parties at DQ, as well as celebrations. When Sis. Duct Tape Lady moved to St. Louis, I think we visited almost every ice cream establishment known to mankind in her first couple of weeks here. And before I took this teaching job, we went to Coldstone just about every Friday. We even had our favorite server that we always prayed for (he always gave you twice as much ice cream as you asked for!). In the summer time, the office lady and I would make a DQ run almost everyday. I just love the stuff and never get sick of it! I think I'm going to have to give in and go get some.

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It was a sad day today as I found out one of my prize students will be leaving the school this week. I'm sure it will usually be a sad thing, but this is my first kid to lose and she's one of those kids you never want to lose. The class is going to have a going away party on Friday and bring in gifts, write letters, and make a little scrapbook for her. Her best friend was crying her eyes out (even though she knew ahead of time). All of the girls are upset--they will now be outnumbered 9 to 5!

I've managed to lose my voice due to a great lack of sleep, combined with having way too much fun playing games and yelling back and forth between friends the last couple of nights. I'm hoping to make some of that sleep up tonight though. Everyone's been making fun of me and I couldn't hardly teach today! Thankfully, it was a light day for me since the kids had tests. I couldn't even raise my voice to get their attention; thankfully, I've perfected these glares (looks that can kill) from working with my quizzers the last couple of years.

Not too much has happened the last couple of days and I haven't had time to think of any profound thoughts to share, so good night!



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A good friend who moved away came for a visit this weekend, so we had to go visit the good ole Applebees. The conversation turned to if he thought all of us had changed at all, so when he gets to me he says that I seem more aggressive. Everyone at the table responds that it's because I work with bus kids. I just kind of laughed, but it got me to thinking about why and I think the answer is multifaceted (big word, hope I spelled it right--it's not on the 4th grade spelling list!). When I first came to New Life, I was suffering from burn out and so I just wanted to hide and not do anything. Then, when I did start getting involved, there were so many amazing people that I was very intimidated by them in every aspect. So even thought I was getting involved, I was so intimidated that I wouldn't let the real me come out. Plus, I have this big issue with trusting people to see the real me and most people still don't know the real me, but quizzing has really helped me in that area. My quizzers are very transparent with what they think and feel, and it has caused me to have to be more open and to share who I am and what I think. Little by little, I began to share my life with them and their families and began to get connected to these kids, then their families and friends, and eventually the whole church. Getting connected was a big key in my personality coming out, plus having to be up in front of 15 kids every day helps you to conquer your fears as well. And the Brazzys have really helped me overcome a lot as well. And most of this has all transpired over the last year. I've grown more comfortable with who God has made me which enables me to do more for Him and I feel like a part of my church family now and know that I don't have to fit a certain mold to be accepted. And of course, with the bus kids, I do have to be aggressive and gentle at the same time. I have to make threats and be lovingly mean at times as that is the culture in which they have been brought up. But through it all, they know I love them! So it really is a multitude of reasons that have contributed to the change in personality.

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I've effectively been torn apart and slowly getting put back together today. We concluded our prayer summit today and if you ever have the chance to hear Dr. Gerald Jeffers, cancel whatever your other plans are and go! The man is amazing and anointed. He is a very effective speaker in that he is intellectual, funny, uses lots of analogies, keeps it interesting, makes you think, doesn't hold back from telling you like it is, and then gives you practical application for applying the word to your life. A lot of things stuck out today, but the thing that probably stuck the most was his comment that a lot of us are just "visiting" with Jesus and not living with Him. He could have stopped right there and I would have been convicted and on my knees, but then he followed with about another ten things that just had me sitting there going, this guy read my book today. He focused a lot on the fruit of the Spirit which had been on my mind all week and someone had said something similar to me earlier that day, plus we had talked about it in Sunday School, so that really stuck out as well. Now comes the hard part of actually putting everything into action...

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Okay, so to reveal more about myself, I will share with you some of the nicknames I have gathered over the years. Now, most people only have a couple of nicknames; I am not like most people--I probably have hundreds! My first nickname came from a superhero's dog off of Captain Kangaroo or some other similar stupid show. My grandma nicknamed me Mighty Manifred the Wonderdog. What kind of grandma does that to her grandkid??? (I got revenge when I became a teenager and started calling her Old Lady--of which she is affectionately called by all my friends and the youth group back home.) That nickname has since been shortened to Fred, which I have been stuck with for life. Most of my other nicknames have come through various stories and events. One girl has always called me "Cookie" since I always gave her cookies at church. When I was in 8th grade, the big hairbows were in style that were like twice the size of your head. Well, my favorite outfit was bright orange, so I had a huge orange bow for my hair. One of the guys dubbed me "Fireball" as a result. When hotsticks at first came out, I had 4 sets of them and thought that it took every single roller to get my hair to curl. One of the guys named me "Medussa" as a result. In high school, I was "Smiley" since I smiled a lot. My most infamous nickname is that of the "Happy Meal Hurler". I was always getting sick on trips, and this happened to be one with our scholastic bowl team. I obviously threw up my happy meal on the school bus in front of everyone. The bus driver wasn't too bright and leaves it on the bus overnight in the middle of February, so it freezes and is on the bus for 3 days! Unfortunately, that was the bus many of my friends rode--they were not too happy! With a last name, like "McKibben" everyone turns that into something. I was "Mandi McNugget" and "Mandi McChicken". My quiz team has dubbed me "Mandi McStudy". My most recent nicknames have come from a set of brothers that are part of our youth group. "Darling" calls me "Mandikins" which I think is sweet and several others have picked up on. "Darling's" brother so named "Precious" calls me "Mandi McCackle" as I have a very loud laugh that bursts out at random times at anything and everything. "Precious" was even helping clean out the closet at the school one afternoon when he comes across a small kid size broom and announces to everyone, "Look, it's Mandi's broom!" It's a good thing I know the kid loves me. It's also great that I'm his 2nd mom, so if I feel like smacking him upside the head, I have permission from his 1st mom to do so!

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