Friday, May 24, 2013

Looking for the Joys Among the Madness

The last two weeks have been insane for me!  The girls had their annual dance recital, Noah had baseball and football conditioning, speech therapy, a surgery, 6 formal assessment to be given to my students (yes...I teach pre-K), and life's normal demands (you know the ones...cooking, cleaning, showering :). 

One evening, I was rushing from picking up Noah at the football field across a parking lot to grab the girls from their dress rehearsal.  I looked down and this is what I was carrying in my hand...

 
So, taking Ann Voskamp's advice (http://onethousandgifts.com/), I decided instead of grumbling in my head about the rushing, or the fact I am totting half of the kids stuff, or countless other things I could complain about...I decided to give thanks!  I am so thankful that God blessed me with boys and girls.  I love a beautiful ballet recital....watching my lovely girls twirl and tap.  However, I also love a good rough and tumble football game.  Thankfully, I can enjoy both.

Here are a few other moments that I had this past week that have given me reason to give thanks...

Chloe reading Isaac a bedtime story.
 

Noah and Malachi scooting.
 

The flowers Anna brought me from the woods.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Noah Blogs about Urban Hope

Over the weekend of April 19-21, Noah and Brian traveled to Urban Hope in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  This was Noah's third trip to Urban Hope.  I asked him to write about his time there.  Here is his story in his own words....

We arrived at Urban Hope at about 4:30 P.M.  At 5:00, we were all settled in.  Then, we all went to a meeting so the leaders of Urban Hope could tell us what our mission was and what we would be doing.  If you were wondering...our mission was to strike up a conversation with somebody and to go out of our comfort zone and we would... feed the homeless, throw a block party, and (our church did not but all the other churches) participate in Kingdom Kids.

During feeding  the homeless, I met three people I remember.  I don`t remember two of the names, but I do remember Alonzo.  He was an old guy that was really nice.  He had hair like Pappy.  I remember him because he is the one we talked to the most.  He was born on the 8th of February.  We prayed for him and then he asked, "Can I pray for you?"  Papa said, "Yes".  He started out his prayer, "Thank you Lord for President Obama...".  He finished by saying, "Thank you for this boy standing beside me that is 8 years old."  Feeding the homeless makes me feel happy and sad at the same time....because feeding homeless people makes me happy and some of their stories are very sad.

On Saturday, we threw the block party.  I helped out with 2 things...face painting and the bean bag toss.  First, we had to hand out fliers and clean the street.  There were a lot of people at the block party.  The people seemed to have a very good time.  I like the block party because we are doing what God wants us to do...we are going out of our comfort zone and talking to people and inviting them to a party so they can learn about God's love.

I like going to Urban Hope because I like to see how the people react when you tell them stories about God.  Sometimes, they ask God to forgive them for their sins. 

I hope next year I go to Urban Hope.  It is fun.