The View From My Fishbowl

Last night my dad sang a special in church, which only happens once every five years or so. If you’ve ever heard my dad sing, you know he really is tone-deaf, so that’s why he sings in public so rarely. (With the exception of birthday phone calls to everyone in church…some have been known to record these renditions of Happy Birthday and save them the entire year!) Yet, I’ve rarely seen my dad do anything with anything less than enthusiasm, so whenever he sings a special in church, it is a touching thing to watch. I think that if he was up there trying to pass himself off as a great singer, it would lose a bit of its effect, but the fact that he and everyone else knows that he can’t sing, and yet he really wants to share a song because it speaks to his heart, makes it a worthwhile thing to hear.

So he sang “It’s Been Worth Every Mile,” partly as a testimony for his own 35 years in the ministry and partly because it was the last night of special meetings with Bro. E.L. Bynum, who was celebrating 60 years in the ministry this month.

The Bynums are dear, sweet people and very good friends of ours. They’ve known my family since there was only four of us, and have watched all of us grow up.

If you read what Bro. Bynum writes in the Plains Baptist Challenger, you would think that he was a strong, abrasive type of person. But when you meet him in real life, he is gentle and mostly soft-spoken. The man does know what he believes, though, and isn’t afraid to take a stand for it. It is such a blessing to know families who have stood faithful in their ministry!

“There’ve been many trials I’ve faced since I started in this race,
Many times it seemed no hope was in sight,
Many times the valley seems so long, dark, and cold,
But my Lord’s been there every step of the way.

There’ve been many friends I’ve met since I started in this way,
Who’ve said I’ll go with you all the way,
But they’ve turned, and they’ve gone, and left me standing all alone,
But my Lord’s been my friend all of the way.

There’ve been many prayers I’ve prayed and it seemed He did not hear,
Many times it seemed an answer would not come,
Many times I’ve grown weary and forgotten the prayers I’ve prayed,
But my Lord remember and answers every one.

It’s been worth every mile, it’s been worth every trial,
It’s been worth every valley that we’ve crossed,
It’s been worth everything that we’ve faced in His dear name,
And it will be worth it all when we see His face.”
(Dean Shook)

(My dad has been posting some clips of an interview with Bro. Bynum on his blog…)

Remember last year’s Vacation Bible School?

This year’s theme was “Operation Sword and Shield” and we went with more of a medieval theme. We decorated the chapel to look like a castle, complete with drawbridge entrance over the moat, a ‘throne room,’ flags, and armor everywhere. Each evening all the activities, memory verses, games, puppet skits, and even snacks all corrolated to each other. I think in all we had 60-70 kids, 20 or so of those being visitors from outside our church.

I didn’t take any pictures, but I swiped a couple off FB so you could see a small sampling. This was the castle interior:

Wednesday was dress-up night. I think the teachers got into it more than the kids did.

My outfit: I wasn’t really a peasant (gold skirt), but I wasn’t really a princess either. Maybe just a lady??

Friday night was the festival, where all the parents were invited to come. All the kids have their points from the week tallied up and cashed in for “Bible Bucks.” These can be spent on a variety of games set up in the castle and outside, including face painting, archery, water balloon toss, darts, and other stuff. When they win, they get tickets which can be redeemed for prizes of little toys, pencils and erasers, and candy. And of course, Mrs. L headed up the food, with the smashing hits of nachos, waffles and ice cream, and sno-cones, among other things.

All in all, it was a great week, but I think we are all pretty tired now.

I can’t share one camp experience without sharing another equally as thrilling, but it really isn’t a Part 2…more like Segment 2.

This particular campground we were using was not only infested with mice (in particular cabins), but had a large and beautiful lake, stocked with fish, canoes, kayaks, and paddle boats. We’ve always had swimming pools at our camps, but never boats. It was a new experience for many, and lots of fun for all involved, even those who tipped over (not me, by the way). Over a portion of this lake was a very long zip line, which started on one side of the lake about 3 stories up, and ended on the other side of the lake on the ground.

Split up into teams, we were making a game out of this zip line. In the water below the line were people in boats and every person who went on the zip line was given sponges soaked in water. For every person, boat, or oar you hit, your team would receive so many points. I decided to take a shot at it for my team, and as I was putting the harness on, one of my teammates explained why she wouldn’t be participating in this game. Apparently the year before, she had been on the zip line, landed wrong and twisted her ankle rather severely. So I made a mental note not to land wrong and skipped merrily on my way all the way around the lake where the tower was, the whole time with the harness awkwardly attached to me.

When my turn came, I scampered up the tower with my two sponges dripping with water, and was assisted at the top to climb the ladder (as if the tower wasn’t high enough). At this point, I caught a glimpse of exactly how high up I was and I felt a strange little quiver in my stomach and a shake in my knees. Determined to do this and ignoring the sudden impulse to run back down the stairs, I was then instructed to turn around backwards holding on only with my two hands (already full of dripping sponges) to two poles sticking up on either side of the ladder. I was then given my instructions for landing. My brain was not computing the instructions, however…it was simply screaming at me, You idiot! What are you doing?!?! You are going to die!!! I just argued back and said I was going to follow through, so brain, would you shut up already?

Somewhere in all this arguing with myself, I did catch a couple snatches of the landing instructions. Relax. You will automatically turn around backwards. When you hit the end, just stand. Let the line do it for you. If there was more to it than that, I certainly had no comprehension. I kept getting hung up on the relax part which he kept repeating, probably because my knuckles were turning white and my eyes were ready to pop out of my head.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let go. In my anxiousness to grab an instant hold of the rope, I just dropped the sponges and they barely made it into the lake, far from any of the boats underneath. Within seconds I was practically flying. My rope must have been twisted when it was hooked on, because I spun around in circles the entire length of the lake. I screamed the entire distance at the top of my lungs, and that even though my voice was already mostly gone. (It was really gone after that!)

When I came in for my landing, I did not automatically turn around backwards. Instead, I came in frontwards. I screamed at the man on the shore as I flew by him, What in the world am I doing?! because I really couldn’t remember if I had been given instructions on what to do if this happened. I’m not sure what I expected him to do about it, but in moments of desperation, you have little to no solid reasoning. A split second later, I plowed feet first into a huge pile of mulch, spraying dirt and sawdust everywhere…in my shoes, in my clothes, in my hair, and probably on everyone around me.

To say I was relieved to be on solid ground would be an understatement. If I didn’t have to stand there until I was unhooked from the line, I probably would have collapsed, because my legs felt like jelly. All around me everyone was laughing hysterically, and yet I was too because I was just so glad to be alive.

Even with all that, I would definitely do it again. It was the most terrifying and yet exhilarating experience I have ever had. Whether I would scream as much the second time around or not, I have no clue. We’ll have to see what happens next year…

—————————

More camp pics

Feeling tiny little steps across my head, I was woken from my dream. What I was dreaming of I don’t remember now, but I can assure you it was better than the reality I would soon realize. Is that a mouse? I thought in my state of half-consciousness. I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair. Nothing.

I laid back on my pillow and began to settle in, wondering vaguely what time it could be. Someone’s alarm from across the room started to ring, and I heard stirring from beds around me. It must be near to 6 AM since everyone was starting to get up.

Just then I felt those same tiny steps again, this time sneaking across my shoulder. I was sure of it; there was no mistake this time! Again I sat up, this time flinging the blankets back in order to make a quick escape. At first, nothing…and then there it came, from the depths of my sleeping bag where it had been flung, the mouse went running for the nearest wall, which happened to be on the other side of my pillow.

Did I scream? No. Did I gasp? No. Did I jump? No. I did the first thing that popped into my mind, and that was to flick the mouse. Yes, I flicked it, I brushed it, I pushed it with a mighty spring of my fingers and flung that silly mouse as far from my bed as I could.

Then I sat there, still not fully awake and trying to comprehend what had just happened. I hadn’t dreamt it. It all happened so fast, in just a few seconds really, and all around me the other girls were going about their business, completely oblivious to what had just happened.

I said, There was a mouse in my bed, but no one heard me. I said it again, louder this time. From across the room, someone thought they misunderstood so I repeated it again. With each repetition, I realized more of what had happened and jumped out of bed to check for more unwanted visitors. I wasn’t planning on getting up at 6 that day, but there was no sleeping now.

———————————————————-

Camp went well, despite the furry visitors to our cabin. As is becoming more and more typical for me, I took a measly 5 pictures: one of me on the bus, and the rest of the beautiful lake on the campground where we stayed. So if you wish to see some pictures and you haven’t seen them yet, you’ll have to visit sites other than mine. Try here to see some of our craziness and here to get a summary of the messages. (And here to download and listen to the messages.)

Today was Promotion Sunday at church, the Sunday when all the kids move into the next grade of classes for Sunday school. This gets less exciting as you get older, but I think it is most exciting for the kids moving into “First Grade.” They not only move out of the nursery area to the elementary side with the ‘big kids,’ but they begin attending Children’s Church for the Sunday morning service – which is a very big deal around here. They also attend VBS in the summer, and a Wednesday evening “King’s Kids” when school starts again. Life is exciting in first grade!

My Sunday school class is the four and five year olds, which is the class right before first grade. So to say the excitement level was high this morning would be an understatement.  

Seven of my kids moved up this year (one wasn’t there for the promotion ceremony). I am so proud of them and how much they have done the past two years. These were the little kids when I first took over the class, freshly moved up from the two and three year olds, and they have all made so much progress. They became my involved kids who memorized all the verses, sat nicely (most of the time), payed attention, etc.  It was a bittersweet day to see them move on to bigger and better things.

We have quite a few secretaries who work for the various ministries of our church, and we usually all go out to lunch for secretary’s day each year. This year was no exception. Rather than the cutesy tea room down the street, or the old standby Panera (we all love salad!), we went ‘exotic’ at the Japanese Hibachi!!! 

Some pictures for your viewing pleasure…

The onion-ring-of-fire is probably my favorite ‘trick’ that the chef does (except for the flying shrimp, which he didn’t do!!! So disappointed about that…). First he fills the onion with…something…oil maybe?

Then there is a little fire…

Then a LOT of fire!!!

When put all together, it certainly looks like we ate a lot of food! We all had salad and fried rice (not pictured) then vegetables with our choice of meat (I think we had steak, chicken, shrimp, and scallops represented). 

All the secretaries of LVBC and ministries…

What I’ve been working on lately…

Go check it out! We’ve had a ladies paper for a long time (like 1984) and I was thrilled when my mom said she wanted to put it online. We have several talented authors in our church, and I am excited that we can put our paper (independent Baptist, King James only, addressing the needs and struggles of today’s Christian woman) in a position where it can be a blessing and encouragement to more people. Pass the word, and feel free to link to us.

I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that I finished everything I needed to do in plenty of time. Camp was great fun! It was our first year going to a winter camp hosted by another church (we’ve always hosted our own) so it was a lot less work to prepare for, even though we had to drive 8 hours to get there. At this particular camp, there were about 250 people there, and with the exception of one other church, I didn’t know anyone else. It was actually kinda weird, but lots of fun meeting new people.

The games were fun, the competition was steep, the messages were powerful, and the singing was incredible. I just love camp all the way around. I was prepared this year with my electric kettle and coffee press, so there was good coffee in abundant supply. Between that and my wonderful sleeping-bag, I was quite comfortable and could have stayed much longer than three days. AND, my team won second place!!! (much better after my summer camp team came in dead last….not that I’m bitter or anything…)

We played this game called Gauntlet, created by Bro. Mick, the camp director. Basically, in a large room, there are four machine guns (nerf guns) in each corner. These are manned by 3 people – a gunner, a loader, and a ‘protector’ who has a little one-shot nerf pistol. The team who is playing lines up in the hallway, every person is outfitted with a six-shot nerf gun (and a few get hand grenades), and then the whole team rushes the machine guns at the same time. The goal of the game is to take out all four machine guns as quickly as possible with as few casualties as possible. There is a box in front of each gun, and when a grenade is thrown into the box, all three men die and the gun is disabled. If all three men are shot, the machine gun can be picked up by a team member and used against the other machine guns. I think the best time was 28 seconds, with only two casualties. Then there were others who took over a minute and everyone died except for one or two people. Such a cool game…

It is now 2009, as I look at the clock and see that it is 19 minutes past the hour. I’ve been catching up on blog reading and emails for the past couple hours, and now I’m ready for bed. Here are a couple pictures…but I really didn’t get very many from the week. I’ll have to steal some from some of my friends.

Lining up to play Tubes

Bro. Mick

Lots of time spent in the car

The Ladies Christmas Tea was a grand success! When it comes to anything organizing or decorating or baking, sign me up for it. An event like this was right up my alley…even if I was wondering (around 5 o’clock) why I ever agreed to this, or why I created so much work for myself. LOL

First you have to understand what we usually do. We usually have a Ladies Potluck in January. We always decorate, but nothing to this extent. We use styrofoam and everyone brings various dishes and desserts. Decorations consist of white tablecloths, white lights strung around the ceiling, and a candle on each table. It is pretty casual, but it is always a wonderful time. (At this moment, I think this is what we should do again next year. Heehee….)

This year, I decided that we should do something a bit nicer. The timing just worked out to have it before Christmas, and we liked the idea of having a tea. So why not make it formal? Better yet, why not make it fancy and formal?

So we did. I had tons of help…there’s no way I could have pulled this off by myself. All the dishes were brought by different ladies in the church. No styrofoam tonight…everything was real china and silver and glass. The decorating was the easy part…the food was what was most time-consuming in this case.

The easiest way to serve food at a tea (besides having a buffet line…which I was trying to get away from) was to have it served. So I worked out a menu, which I post here for posterity’s sake:

Course #1:

Tangy Turkey Salad Sandwiches

Cucumber Cream Cheese Sandwiches

Pineapple Nut Sandwiches

Chicken Curry Salad Sandwiches

Course #2:

Veggie Bars

Fruit Kabobs

(With cantaloupe, pineapple,

grapes, and strawberries)

Course #3:

Peppermint Scones

Apple Cranberry Scones

Chocolate Chip Scones

(With Devonshire Cream)

Course #4:

Thumbprint Cookies

Snickerdoodles

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

(Every male who walked through beforehand and read the above menu questioned why we would go to so much work to have only that to eat. Apparently, they don’t appreciate tea sandwiches!)

All the ladies signed up for different things on the menu and then I handed out recipes. I’ve never seen so many variations on the same scone recipe. It was great!

Once the food came, we split it all up on trays and were only ten minutes late in getting started with the first course. There was so. much. food. We ended up making ‘doggie bags’ out of the leftovers for each lady to take home. It was almost like a sandwich-scone-cookie swap.

Anyway, many thanks to the lovely Sarah Joy for capturing these pictures. I had my camera, but was so busy running around and skewering fruit that it didn’t even come out of my jacket pocket.

Here is what one of the tables looked like…actually this table didn’t even get used, because some ladies had to back out last minute (flu going around…). Each table had several candles, some greenery and Christmas balls, settings for 8, menu cards, nuts and chocolates, water pitcher, creamer and sugar. One lady at the table (mostly whoever brought the china) was appointed as ‘hostess’ and was responsible for making sure everyone had tea and water.

There were about 55 ladies in all…but for some reason (completely my fault…I have no idea what I was thinking), I planned food for 80, even though we only had seats for 65. That is why there was so much food. I guess that is better than running out!

Many, many thanks to all who came, brought dishes, made food, helped decorate, or slaved away in the kitchen washing dishes. (And to my lovely mother, who put up with all my grandiose ideas and then still came down to help me set up. She designed a four-page program/brochure, put together a special Grace & Honor edition, gave a ‘devotional’, aka sermon, and had to present the changes to the missionary groups as well as the unveiling of the new ladies website. She was a busy lady too!!!)

Now….what should we do next year? LOL