Today

Church tonight was hilarious. First I was on sound desk which stresses me immensely, coz i am still learning how to do it, and it's scary. But noone really cares if I make mistakes lol, so I shouldn't really stress so much.
Then we had a massive leak which started during communion. As in, the roof started leaking. I heard it first, and while I was still trying to see where it was coming from, someone noticed water trickling down the wall. Before long it had turned into a mini deluge, and we were frantically finding buckets to catch the water, and move things out of the way.
Then coz I had been concentrating for so long, all my craziness came out during supper, and i had great fun being the clown :P I was on supper, and I hadn't been able to spend ages on baking and stuff, plus I am feeling like everything I try and make is a failure, so I just made baby quiches ( so named because of their size, not ingredients) and cold rolls, and then for sweets had yoyos to ice and decorate. It was reasonably entertaining.
Then I had to blow dry the water damaged hymn books (good thing I happened to have my hair drier on me) and help clean up, which, naturally, ended with me spilling milk all through the fridge and making even more work for us.
Then we went and watched a movie, which was fun but I didn't really get what was happening. My inability to distinguish men's faces didn't help, and we'd missed the beginning so I had no chance.
Now i'm home and have run out of dvds which is pretty sad. Oh well. I'll catch up on desperate housewives online hehe.

Expectations

I always get things I don't expect. Today I thought I was going to have an awful time at a dinner thing i had, and it turned out to be quite nice. I thought I'd have a god time at church, and I got really sad halfway through, which was weird for me. Normally I'm really happy at those kinds of things. I think I just miss my family a lot, and the labelling meant I had time to think about it.
Just weird really. But the overall labelling of bottles was great, it is so exciting that small change for change is actually happening, and it is really exciting to be a part of. I'm very proud to be a part of a church which has ideas, and puts them into action. :)
I'm trying to focus on a couple of verses from Ephesians recently. "Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bonds of peace." (Ephesians 4:2-3). Last week's sermon reminded me that pride can destroy pretty much everything good, and so I am trying to not let that be the case. But then again, the more you try not to be prideful, the more you fail. So I guess I have to let Jesus in more. Hmmm. Lots to think about there.
And last week I found out about some money issues that may make what I had planned for next year an impossibility. Kinda frustrated now. I just want to do what God wants, and not worry about financial stuff, but I've been doing that for a while and it hasn't been working out too well, so I dunno. If only I didn't need so much sleep. Trying to fit in 10 hours of sleep a night makes studying on top of full time work really hard.
What a jumble of thoughts. I don't have a chair at my desk, so I'm not going to try and improve them!

Reflecting

Now for a longer post on Kids Club...

Things I learned:

Monday:
1. Don't cut the memory verse into 30 pieces. Terrible terrible idea. It took 5 leaders 10 minutes to put it back together, by which time I'd taught the kids the verse, and the visual back up was no longer needed.
2. Running on the tennis courts is never ever a good idea!
3. Ewen is really good at running games, especially since he had no warning!

Tuesday:
1. My dad's masks used for telling the story of Jairus's daughter are really not suited for me...firstly because I can't wear my glasses with them, secondly because my long hair gets in my face ridiculously.
2. Being able to step back from things and let others step up and run them is really amazing. Sally was an absolute star.
3. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Mark 9:23, everything is possible for him who believes! (actually I already knew this one, but everyone else learned it! and will possibly never get it out of their heads...)

Wednesday:
1. I can do magic tricks! Well one anyway...I was really pleased with how the bible story worked this day. One of the really little kids totally made the connection between the disappearing coin and the empty tomb, which was both cute and also encouraging.
2. Leaders meetings in the middle of Kids Club week are a bad idea. We are all too tired!
3. I'm not allowed to ask to eat the goldfish at Wok in a Box for tea. :(

Thursday:
1. 8 cups of tea in a day is too much for my bladder :P
2. Alana is going to do some amazing things in the future. Her ability to get up in front of a fairly big group was very impressive.
3. Things aren't always as they seem.

Friday:
1. I haven't grown out of my travel sickness...and my coping mechanism is still going to sleep :P
2. Baby Zebras are super cute
3. (Hopefully) without sounding vain/proud, I think I learned that I could do Kids Club fairly successfully. It's been a lot of hard work, but I think I did okay in the end.

Kids Club

Wow kids club has been so great! I am so happy with how everything has gone so far. I was a bit shaky after Mondays teaching, I felt like I'd done a fairly crap job, but I think the rest of the week went ok.
The kids have been happy, and most of the leaders seem to be as well. It's just been a really good week. I have felt really positive about the whole thing. And it's Friday tomorrow, which means I basically have nothing to worry about. Just a devotion in the morning, and a few conversations that need to happen.
Sleepy time would probably be a good idea right now I guess.

Wondering

This morning I woke up at 6 AM, to get ready for kids club. I didn't have much to do, just write a couple of notes for the leader's devotion for that morning. The day's bible story was the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers, and I was going to focus on thankfulness. you know, something along the lines of remembering to be thankful at the end of the day, even though we'll be tired and stuff.
But when I woke up, this other idea popped into my head. I assumed it was God, since I'm not typically capable of having ideas before the sun rises! I felt like I had to do something different, and when I sat down at the computer, a bunch of other stuff just poured out of my fingers. (Again, seemed like God, my ability to create anything these past few months has been seriously not there.)
I ended up saying this:

Just imagine for a minute that you have been isolated from your family, from your friends, from most of the world. You have been in pain, and the small amount of human contact you have is met with disgust and fear. And then something changes. Something happens to your life. Someone happens to your life. Suddenly, all is well again. Your friends want to be with you again, your family loves you again. People on the street are high fiving you, and inviting you to parties.

If you could, wouldn’t you want to say thank you to the person who had brought about this change?

It’s easy for us to say yes, and to judge those 9 other men in the story. But how often has our response been the same? How often have you not thanked God for healing or blessing in your life? I know for me, that is almost every day.

We get busy, we get tired, or we simply don’t recognise what he has done. Or we take it for granted. Jesus died on the cross. So what? That was thousands of years ago. I’ve got my own life, my own problems to deal with, I just don’t feel like saying thanks right now.

But when someone gives you a gift, you probably want to accept it. And part of accepting a gift, is saying thanks. I mean, you can just take it and run, but to me that sounds like a 16 year old kid who gets given a car for his birthday. “Oh great” he thinks, and drives off. Except, if he’d taken a minute to say thanks to his parents, he would have heard them say “and we’ll teach you to drive”.  Which would have helped him avoid the accident between his car and the letterbox.

The memory verse today is “God wants everyone to be saved, and to know the whole truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4). That means the kids who come here today, and each of us in this room. And the truth is that Jesus Christ came to earth, and gave himself as a ransom for us, as the next couple of verses in 1 Timothy say.

Without Jesus, we all have a kind of leprosy. I mean our skin isn’t really infected, but our life is. Just think about your life. Think about the arguments you have had, the terrible things you have seen. Think about the people who have hurt you. Think about the people you have hurt. Life isn’t the way it is supposed to be. You can feel that inside you.

And it’s all because of sin. Because we are no longer fully connected to God. What was once a perfect relationship, in a perfect world is now ruined. It’s pretty crappy really.

However, we have the chance to get right with God. Just like Jesus healed the ten lepers, he has healed the world...almost 2000 years before Michael Jackson asked for it...

Jesus did this for everyone, whether they wanted it or not. Dying on the cross was universal. But because he is loving and just, and gave us free will, we don’t have to accept his gift. Some people are like the 9 other lepers, who take Jesus gift, but don’t really bother to accept it properly. They don’t say thanks, and so they miss out on what the fullness of their healing is.

Jesus loves everyone, but not everyone responds.

This is our theme today, and as we present this message to the children, I think we should ask ourselves where we sit with God. Have we accepted his gift of spiritual healing, and entered into a relationship with him? Do we thank him continually for what he has done? If your answer is no, then please, take some time to consider accepting Jesus’ gift.

Kinda lame, but hey, give me a break, I was writing it at 7AM...
I just can't figure out why God wanted me to say that. And I'll probably never know. Which is OK, but being the cat that curiosity has tried to assassinate on many occasions, I just want to know. I mean I won't even know if it was really God, or just my crazy, befuddled, early morning brain.