Here’s a peek at Camp Primo 2009. Our campers earned lots of award badges. Here are the requirements they accomplished and the badges they earned:

PET CARE                                                                                                                            Watered and fed Charmin                                                                                         Cleaned Charmin’s paws                                                                                            Walked Charmin                                                                                                                     Fed ducks, peacocks, goats, rooster                                                                           Slept with a pet dog

BIBLE EXPLORATION                                                                                                   Crossing of the Red Sea                                                                                                    Jesus Cooks for his Disciples

BIBLE PROJECTS                                                                                                                   Red Sea coloring sheet                                                                                                       Fish on the Beach snack project                                                                                       Red Sea snack project for our parents

HIKING BADGE                                                                                                                   Learned safety rules                                                                                                        Used a bandanna and whistle                                                                                       Found a stick in the woods                                                                                              Sanded and decorated sticks                                                                                         Went on a hike with sticks                                                                                               Extra Credit: hiking in the rain

SWIMMING                                                                                                                   Swimming three times                                                                                                   Noodle fun                                                                                                                              Extra credit: swimming in the rain

Take a look at some of the highlights!

We don’t know who has more fun- Grandmama and Papa or our two campers!

This has been an interesting week! Several of us took 7 4th/5th grader kids on a short term mission trip right here at home! We brought the “fresh bread” of God’s Word to children living in an apartment complex in Clarkston as well as at our own SqPeg Ministries apartment in Roswell. Our first day of ministry was at an apartment complex in Clarkston. We visited the mission housed in the Leasing Office which is directed by a wonderful, big-hearted bear of a man named Bennett

We brought some games, a puppet song, an interactive Bible story and a stick song named “Arise My Love” with which to minister to the children.

Following are a few photos to give you the flavor of the day. The first one is our team at Tim Cummins’ office. He gave us an orientation about apartment complex ministry to refugees and other immigrants. Tim is an awesome man of God and made our trip possible.

 Two Muslim teenagers

A variety of enthic groups live together in this apartment- all of them refugees from war torn countries. Although the children I’m speaking with look Hispanic, they were Asian- mostly refugees from Bhutan via a refugee camp in Nepal. Notice the three women in the background.

The kids in the complex were SOOOO excited we were there. However, that excitement turned to craziness in their behavior as in stealing much of our equipment right out from under our noses: microphone, squirt guns, my sunglasses and more. We finally had to send half our team to play games with the children while the other half of us (see the orange shirts in the background?) quickly set up. We recovered most of our stuff by chasing down the guilty parties.

Notice the different ethnicities of children- all sitting on the same beach towel!

Bennett is the director of this mission. He runs a full after school program for his kids every week day during the school year. During the summer he feeds children two meals a day. He is a precious man.

Two refugee moms watched our program. 

I loved the dicotomy of color between the boys we were visiting and boys on our team.

Staci graciously agreed to join our team on this trip. One of the things she did was to teach our group the stick choreography to the moving song “Arise My Love.” 

 Bennett had asked us to not be too overt in our Christianity, simply beacuse of his work in developing relationships with the Mulims living in his complex. It takes time to develop trust with those of a completely different background. He is using the tools of his after school programs to develop the relationships necessary to introduce families to Jesus. So, in order to respect Bennett’s wishes, we closed our program with the “Arise My Love” ministry in place of a salvation call. After the song, which tells the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the little boy in the following picture questioned one of our team members. He asked if Jesus was still dead, giving our team member a great opportunity to tell the little guy the truth of what Jesus did for him. You can see the interest on his face!

After the ministry, we of course gave our kids a chance to cool off in our hotel’s swimming pool. We didn’t know until then that Cece could actually levitate!!

Highlights of the last 6 weeks:

Disney Cruise with our family. Fun, fun, fun!

Darrell and on went on a Segway excursion in Nassau. I LOVED it!

Baby Asa- stopping at the gas station on the way…

Nora and Lydia on deck!

Nora’s Spring Sing: Brandy is the music teacher and plans several musical presentations. Here is Nora and her class.

Resurrection Day ministries in which I was involved:

Resurrection Day Stations in Discovery Zones

Nora was excited to get to church with her new Bible!

A couple of examples of the stations. We encourage kids to touch, smell, taste and handle the items on the tables. Leaders read the Scripture passage and allow the kids to look at the accompanying photo.

Resurrection Day in Quest Kids Church: adults dressed in Bible costumes, kids who wanted to wore head bands. Bible characters came in and out of our service, re-enacting the events of Resurrection Day morning giving us a “first-person” experience.

Good Friday ministry at Kids Club

The New M&M Puppeteers ministered with a stick song, a puppet song and a puppet skit. Miss Brandy and I taught the lesson.

Yum, yum!

 Here we are in the Captain’s exclusive dining room. Behind Amanda and Les is a window wall overlooking the ocean at sunset. Beautiful!

l-r: Les, Amanda, Brandy, Jason, me, Darrell

Lydia, Asa and Nora

I could eat them up!!

Cindy has had a crazy day/week/month/year…

I am thinking about Camp Rocks PreCamp Staff training tomorrow.

Need to print some more staff notebook handouts but my printer is acting up.

Cindy is excited about Camp Rocks.

Cindy got some interesting phone calls/invitations today. One of them involved a free trip to Newport Beach, CA. Hmmmm….not too much to think about on that one!

Relational Evangelism, anyone? I think I’ll be writing an article for a magazine soon on that one…..

Also thinking about tomorrow- too much to do for one day- but somehow, the Lord will help me get it done!

Got my hair cut today. Whew!!!

They asked me how I wanted them to confirm my appointments. My choice was “Text me!”

OK- enough already!

One of my favorite restaurants in Roswell is Sahara. They offer Lebanese cuisine and it reminds me so much of how we ate when visiting Israel. People in Mediterranean countries eat several appetizers, sometime called salads, regardless of the actual ingredients, before or as their entire meal. So, tonight I had four “salads” and a bowl of lentil soup. One of the “salads” I had was hummus and pita bread. I brought the leftovers home and they are now calling my name! I also mistakenly took a bite out of something I realized later was part of the garnish on one of the dishes. I thought it was a beet but it actually turned out to be a piece of pickled turnip. Yikes! That was the hottest, nastiest, worst-tasting piece of food I’ve had in my mouth in a long time. I wanted Darrell to taste it to see if he could tell what it was. He will usually try anything- but he said after seeing what my face looked like, there was no way he was going to try it!

So, while I highly recommend Mediterranean food and Sahara Mediterranean Grill- I definitely will warn you to stay away from pickled turnips! Yuck!

Click here for a link to the restaurant.

We took the kids on the puppet team from our apartment complex ministry to One Way Street’s Montgomery, Al Puppet Festival this past weekend. The festival theme for 2009 is “Reflecting Christ.” The opening theme presentation was a well-done fairy tale. To introduce the tale, the beginning of the program featured narration as the pages of a giant pop-up book were turned by hooded and gloved puppeteers. The ensuing skit/story was enjoyable and kind of different for an opening presentation. I really liked it.

Can I say that traveling with 8 kids from the apartments has its challenges? Thank goodness for the GPS on Miss Melissa’s phone. Another huge blessing is Miss Julie’s patience with the kids themselves!

OWS kept me busy- taught in all three workshop sessions, brought the Saturday morning devotion to all the attendees, played some large group games before the devotion to somehow fill the big shoes left by Sandy Noe who regretfully broke her ankle earlier in the week and couldn’t attend. I also got to judge the song competition which was “decent to good!” My all-time favorite workshop to teach is what I call “Biblical Basis for Children’s Ministry”- and I got to teach it this weekend.

In honor of election day!

Last week in Kids Club in our ministry apartment, we introduced the story of the children of Israel demanding a king from samuel. This was a very disheartening reuest for Samuel. So, Samuel went to te Lord with the people’s request. I kind of got the impresssion Samuel was almost saying, “This is a crazy thing, Lord, and I know you’ll never go for it- but you know your people? Well, they think they want a king. Isn’t that a good one? Hahahahaha…”

To Samuel’s dismay, here is what the Lord answered: “Go ahead and do what they’re asking. They are not rejecting you. They’ve rejected me as their King. So let them have their own way. But warn them of what they’re in for. Tell them the way kings operate, just what they’re likely to get from a king.”

So, Samuel obeyed God and went to the people with this answer:  “This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates… He’ll put some of your sons to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves. But don’t expect God to answer.” 

Well,  the people didn’t listen to Samuel. They wanted their own way. “Herd mentality” took over and they said:  “No! We will have a king to rule us! Then we’ll be just like all the other nations. Our king will rule us and lead us and fight our battles.”

Well, you can probably guess that the Israelites lived to rue the day they ever asked for a king! Taxes, draft, forced labor and more was a tough comparison to how they had lived with our gracious God as their king.

Thinking about this really made me start to see this election in the light of this story from 1 Samuel 8. I feel like half of our country is just whining and crying and saying, “Wah, wah, wah. I want my government to take care of me. I want all my needs met regardless if I am living responsibly and working hard myself. I want someone in charge who tells me what I want to hear. I want Obama!”

I think if that happens, our country will look back and wonder what in the world they were thinking in passing up an honorable, duty-driven man like Senator McCain for the inexperienced, “change” his positions daily, short-sighted, unqualified person known as BHO. The course he could set our country on will not easily be corrected.

I hope and pray for John McCain. I want to see a red U.S. map on Wednesday morning!