Yes, They Really Are That Cool

The Sunday after Thanksgiving is, apparently, Elf and open gym night for the youth group. Open gym... not exactly my strong suit. This year, though, Kerrin also brought silverware and napkins that needed to be tied together for the Christmas Feast in White Swan. About a dozen of the girls jumped right up onto the gym stage and wrapped, tied, and curled 250 sets of silverware. (I don't blame the guys for not joining. For some reason, it is a lot more complicated than it looks!)

They literally heard about what we needed to do, and, two minutes later, were doing it. They won't be at the Christmas Feast, and they've never met the people they were doing it for, but they served anyways, because they are just ridiculously incredible like that.

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Over the last few weeks, I have also had conversations with one of the girls about what organizations she could go with to spend a year doing missions before college, and with another girl about different NGOs she could ask for donations towards, rather than getting birthday presents.

Yep. These kids really are that cool.

BTW

Did I tell you that these kids are getting shoeboxes this year!?

Thankful

Just because there are so many things that I feel the need for bullet points...

* I have an awesome group of 4th and 5th graders who come up every Sunday full to bursting with stories about their week - even the ones I could barely get a smile out of at first

* There is an amazing group of highschoolers who let me hang out with them on Sunday (Intersect) and Wednesday nights (cluster)

* Several of the cluster girls are (slowly, so that my brain doesn't explode) teaching me to sign SEE/ESL (English Sign Language)

* We are talking about eschatology in cluster (try to finger spell that word!)

* I get paid to hear four-year-old boys tell me, "I made a pie gun! It shoots pies...that have chemicals in them that destroy lightsabers!"

* Tuesday nights mean driving up to the Rez with Kerrin to hang out with more awesome kids

* My sisters are ridiculously patient with modeling clothes for my Etsy shop

Around these parts...

...we put just about anybody to work.



It takes a lot of hands to get almost 11,000 shoeboxes onto a truck (or three!).

Still Snowing

School was on a two hour delay this morning. Tonight, there is still white stuff coming down from the sky whenever it pleases. Once upon a time, we had cleared the parking lot and you could see the asphalt. Not so much anymore.

It just makes life that much more exciting, right? Who wouldn't want to wonder if the shoeboxes are going to make it past the snow and ridiculously backed up roads? It's more fun to brush snowflakes off the top of every carton as they are loaded onto the truck. Trying to hold onto said cartons with half frozen fingers might be a different story, but, it's pretty, so we'll forgive it for being cold.

Besides, it gives the kids something to do while we wait for more boxes to come in.

Snow

Yes. Snow. In November. Here.

Of course, that means that snow angels must be made, snowflakes must be caught, snow must be eaten, and the sleds must be broken out. The fact that it is ten thirty at night has no bearing whatsoever on anything. Yes, neighborhood, you did see three people making snow angels in the middle of the road tonight. Don't worry. There will be no evidence left in the morning, because it is still snowing.

(There are benefits to having little sisters. Being able act like a five-year-old in new snow, happens to be one of them.)

Mariah Has Skills

Bottom layer of a carton of shoeboxes = perfection

Since Jessica Stone was not here to appreciate it, she thought that the world ought to know.

What About the High Schoolers?

Just for the record, I spend about quadruple the number of hours each week doing church stuff with high school students as I do with 4th and 5th graders. They're harder to blog about, though. For one thing, I want to respect their privacy, and it's far easier to identify one of a 100+ Intersect / cluster attendees than it is to identify one of 500+ elementary kids who run around on Sunday mornings.

Secondly, I could use letters instead of names for them, like I do with the elementary kids, but I'm pretty sure things are confusing enough already without any more alphabet soup. Using real names is just a bad idea, and using code names seems confusing...and just plain odd.

Thirdly, they crack me up, but not in the cute, easily bloggable sort of way that younger kids do, and it seems awkward to write deeper sorts of observations about my sister's friends. Why it would be less awkward if she wasn't still in high school, I'm not sure. But, I'm working on it. Someday, I will figure out a way to share stories about my high schoolers.

Because, believe me. I love the crud out of these kids.

Spiritual Gifts

This month's memory verse comes from 1 Corinthians 12, so we talked about spiritual gifts in small group this week and then went on a hunt around the church for things that reminded us of the different gifts. Before the hunt, though, we had a demonstration of the fact that Jessica's gift is most certainly not drawing.

I can make crooked stick figures with the best of them, but ask me to draw an ear (interpretation of tongues), and it suddenly becomes a very good thing that these fourth and fifth graders have been blessed with good imaginations. The one thing that they could not puzzle out at all was the bullhorn (prophesy). Go figure.

Next week, we'll see if they remember anything besides that there was a picture of a pretzel.

When I explained what a pretzel had to do with intercession (that the shape had to do with an old posture of prayer), one of the girls popped her head up from examining her card and looked at me, "You looked that up on Google, didn't you?"

Ninja Fail

During their first Friday night Fun Fling (church hosted event for 4th and 5th graders), we ran into some dead time, so I took my group to play "ninjas" or "secret agents" through the empty parts of the building. Now, every Sunday, my small group asks to be ninjas - regardless of the fact that there are no empty parts of the building on Sunday mornings.

The culminating point, if we can find another "adult" body to go with us, is the upstairs storage room, where they get plenty of practice at putting-things-back-exactly-where-they-found-them and we get rid of the rest of the wiggles before we go back and finish small group time. If not, we still provide plenty of entertainment for the random adults wandering the halls - who dutifully pretend to not be able to see us.

Sometimes, though, the fourth grade boys think they are a little more skilled (or taller!) than they really are. Almost to a person, this week, they tried to parkour the low end of the welcome booth. Except... they all ended up with their feet on the top of said booth - which also happens to be on wheels - in the process of trying to get over. Completely hysterical to watch, but... needless to say...we had a small discussion as to which horizontal surfaces are meant for feet and which are not, even if you are a ninja. :D

Reverse Trick-or-Treating

For High School youth group this week, we joined forces with the college group to go "reverse trick-or-treating" in the neighborhood near our church.

While the fairies, ninjas, and princess were out with their parents collecting candy, our group of cowgirls, bumble bees, and Waldo went door to door handing out fair trade chocolate.

We watched a video about slavery, child labor, and cocoa before going out and repeatedly giving a short speech of, "We want to thank you for handing out candy to so many people tonight, and we would like to give you some of this cool chocolate that we just learned about."

One of the girls mentioned on the way back to the church that she thought the youth group should do things like this at least once or twice a year. Definitely okay with that idea! In fact...how does once or twice a month sound? (Or an entire month, for that matter?)