Life is STILL Crazy!

Yes, life is still crazy! And time to blog has been nearly impossible! But life has not been dull! It never is if you are passionately following God’s call on your life… boredom is never in God’s Will! (I’m not saying life has been ALL fun, there have been some signifant challenges and even trials, but those are no fun to blog about!)

So here are some pics and fun links to prove I am still alive and having a blast serving God… even if Proverbs 6:4 seems to be my life verse lately!

This month in Kids Church we are about DANIEL, the DARING DUDE! We are exploring HOPE by studying the life of Daniel and how to continually put his HOPE in God no matter what trial faced him! In each story each week we are looking at how Daniel applied hope:
Our theme is parachuting! And we are learning how to parachute you need to being willing to LET GO and FALL and TRUST the parachute! In life, you also need to LET GO and FALL and TRUST GOD to take care of you. If you never “JUMP” you will never experience the thrills that God has planned for you!

Few things are as fun as parachute games (or as hard to maintain control during!)

KC (short for Kids Church!) is a really cool dude that drops in at our church often, though I’ve never actually met him! (strange, huh?) I always seem to be gone when he comes around.

Tonight was our Awana Grand Prix, and we had a record 50 kids racing cars! You can read about it on our NEW church website (Which is another reason I haven’t blogged in awhile. I have been managing that project, designing and supervising our church website overhaul and it just went live, though is still being completed.)

OK, I hate fish. (Other than Nemo, of course, but you can’t smell him!) I can hardly eat a Filet-O-Fish at McD’s. So it was only out of extreme love for children and a Christlike submission that I would put one on my head for Nautical Night at Awana!

Mary Rice Hopkins and Darcie Maze at Kid U Chicago 2006!

Oh, yeah, and then we had that little thing called Kid U in Chicago. WOW! What a day!! As usual, (you’d think we’d learn by now), we were overwhelmed by the response as over 450 people came to be Equipped and Encouraged in children’s ministry!

Steve, our Web Director in his favorite hat from his favorite city.

Boy, I wished I’d blogged about Kid U, but it is so all-encompassing, and then as soon as it is over, I have to undig from everything I didn’t do that week before, plus our new church website going live the same weekend and training all the church staff to use it…. I just never was able to! However, all hope is not lost! Steve did a really great review with a personal touch on his blog, plus there is a feedback discussion in the Kidology forum.

MURPHY’s LAW OF BEING THE KIDOGIST: If anything can go wrong in Kids Church, or if you can be embarassed, it will happen when Kidology.org fans are visiting my church.

These nice ladies showed up on Sunday, the day after Kid U to observe my Kid’s Church service. So there they are are watching and taking notes in their notebooks when a fight breaks out in Kids Church – I’ve never had a fight break out in Kids Church! (Ever, I think!) Oh well, I blame it on the parachutes!

Don’t miss the face in the window!

Then, on Tuesday night a whole gang of friends I met at CPC came for a visit to see my church while in town for that other little conference in town, what’s it called? Oh, yeah, Promiseland or something like that. We often get visitors at our church when Willow Creek is doing their thing. Willow is awesome in many ways, but sometimes it helps to visit a somewhat ‘normal’ church as well. (Note I said ‘normal church,’ not ‘normal children’s pastor!) So, ok, they come for a visit and at least they scheduled it in advance. (Its the surprise visitors with the notepads that can make me nervous!) But what night is it??

PAJAMA NIGHT!
Oh, great! Come meet the Kidologist… in his pajamas! :)

But what a fun night! and the kids are all so cute running around church in their PJ’s! I told The Story of Bear which is always a winner, especially with the girls.

Me and my bear, which I’ve had since I was four years old.

For me, the highlight of Kid U was our new Spanish tract. We had around 60 Spanish speaking brothers and sisters in Christ attend, many couldn’t speak English! So how did we equip and encourage them? Late last year a youg woman named Susana came to one of my workshops at the EFCA Great Lakes Conference and told me how badly training like this is needed in the Spanish community. I challenged her to be a part of the solution! So she attended Kid U Wisconson, listened to my workshops, translated them from my teaching notes and powerpoints, and taught them at Kid U! I also did a Q and Q session where she translated. Our Spanish Ministry has begun! Soon, we will have the Kidology Handbook in Spanish available as well!

Susana Orellana and Pastor Karl.

Close up of the shirt Susana and her husband Eliseo had made for me!

LIFE IS STILL CRAZY… but it is crazy about GOOD THINGS! When I was nineteen God gave me a very clear mission statement for life. (The story istold in Finding Your Ministry Calling on Kidolgy.org) My Life Mission Statement is to Reach and Teach as many children as possible with the Good News of God’s Love, and in the process to Enlist, Equip and Encourage others to do the same.

Yes, life gets busy and crazy, and often too busy to ‘blog’ – but whenever I do finally get a chance to sit here and post some pictures and thoughts, even if no one read this, it would be worth it just for me – to stop and reflect – to remember – to relive – to thank God for the many fun and yet hopefully significant opportunities He gives me to pursue this Mission. THANK YOU for your encouragement and for following God’s plan for your life too!

And dat is double true!