TIco Tuesday, November 15th

Friday night we FINALLY got to do it!! For months, the leaders of Chispas (Sparkies) 1 had been trying to plan a special activity for the kids in our AWANA group. And finally, we got to do it on Friday night. 2 microbuses full of leaders and children headed down the mountain to go to Wendy's. It was a real treat for the kids. And we brought a special surprise for them: one of our awesome leaders' brother is a clown! It was fantastic. He was very entertaining, but also spoke very straightforwardly about God being our perfect Father. Just what these kids need to hear! The kids also went nuts over the balloon animals, watches and swords he made them. It was a lot of fun and the kids all behaved really well; even A, a new boy who is not very good at practicing the virtues of obedience and respect. He makes a superb helper! He did a great job passing out straws and clearing the tables when we were done eating. After dinner (and before heading to the playplace), we taught the kids a song to sing in AWANA on Sunday for Friendship Day. Wow, did some cool stuff happen on Sunday! More stories about that on the blog!

May God bless you in a special way this week!

Love,

Carrie

Sunday was so much fun. As I mentioned, it was Friendship Day in AWANA, so we had a few special things take place because of that. During our opening exercises/time of worship, we took a moment to have a couple children come up and say something nice to the leaders. One little girl who just came to the Bible Home a couple months ago seized the moment to say something not really to the leaders, but to announce that she wasn't going to fight with another girl in her house anymore. Awww! A hand went up, and a boy (one of my favorites) apologized for not forgiving another boy who had asked him forgiveness (and forgave him). Another hand went up. Another boy apologized for misbehaving and having a bad attitude at a baseball game/event on Saturday. It was amazing and beautiful. I'd seen this happen once before at the Bible Home, when a boy publicly apologized for having a bad attitude. So powerful! Praise the Lord for the good work He is doing in the children! They are learning how to behave, how to ask and give forgiveness, how to have healthy relationships and more. Hallelujah!

During opening exercises on Sunday, we also had a few minutes to go around and greet and bless one another. Oh my goodness. If you're familiar with the 5 love languages, talk about filling up the love tank! Going from one person to another, hugging, speaking words of blessing, kindness and friendship, kids coming up to me and throwing their arms around me, another one of my favorite boys coming up behind me and putting his cold little hands over my eyes. AHHH! It was so wonderful! Seriously, people, you all need to come to Roblealto!

The Bible lesson was a lot of fun. It didn't have anything to do with Friendship Day, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway because I want to. Before digging into the lesson, we had a round of Chubby Bunny. Note: it's better to do it with big marshmallows and not the mini ones. We completely lost count. It was totally hilarious though and I think the activity was new to all the kids as well as my fellow leaders. Anyway, I got to teach on the feeding of the 5000. So, I pretended I was the big sister of the boy who had the loaves and fish. I compared the mountain to the volcano the Bible Home is near and told them there were as many people there as could fit in the new National Stadium. I had a couple kids come up and be my little brother, Jesus and the disciples and then had them pass out the chocolate chip pancakes I made. I'd also brought 2 cans of tuna, but we didn't open them. I knew I had to get really creative, because I either had to do something kind of crazy or end up with something kind of lame. The lesson went really well though and at the end I explained how the one boy's act led to the feeding of a multitude is similar to how Jesus' one act of dying on the cross paid for the sins of not just a multitude, but everyone. God totally answered my prayer on how to include the Gospel in the lesson!

Before we got into game time, we sang our friendship song to the Chispas 2 group. They sang a song for us too. Oh and in manual time, both my kids were well behaved. My boy maintained a good attitude and my little girl (who usually cries at some point each week) didn't cry!

Sadly, we only have 1 AWANA left this year. I'm going to miss it like crazy, but I'm thinking I may still go up to the Bible Home every other week to worship with the kids. We'll see!