prayer request

Well as sibling number seven has fallen prey to the icky stomach virus that's been going around I am asking if you will please pray for me that I will stay well and healthy this week!! I'm doing lots of hand washing, lots of water, and hoping my immune system is as well as it can be with regular visits to the chiropractor and the other supplements and things I've been taking. Unfortunately sleep is not something I'm probably getting "enough" of so I'm hoping that doesn't become the chink in my armor. :( I should probably have picked up some colloidal silver today while I was at the health foods store but hindsight is 20/20 right??

Speaking of, I was there getting some pycnogenol which has been tested to see if it would be helpful with jet lag. I shall let you know how it turns out. :D I'm supposed to take it beginning two days before I leave up through five days afterwards, drink plenty of water, and it is supposed to somehow help the transition be easier on my body. We shall see! I'm personally counting on the fact I will be so absolutely exhausted by the time I climb on that plane that I'll have no trouble sleeping.

I'm so very sleepy today. Not really tired although I was definitely exhausted on Saturday night, but I've just wanted to sleep all day today and the brain doesn't want to focus. I'm sure the rain helped with that. Well instead of sitting here talking about the sleep I need I'm going to try to go through verses a time or two and then get some. I knew I would be tempted to sleep in tomorrow since I didn't have work and no appointments until the afternoon so I scheduled my haircut for 9:30. Now I HAVE to be up and dressed and out the door by then. :P

Had some sweet Daniel-time today and how precious it was! He's responding a lot more to people with smiles and even some tiny baby-laughter (you know that adorable little grunting sound??) and even cooing to answer you. My how much fun it is to have adopted nieces and nephews!! I've missed getting to be with little Faith and Abby who are growing up far too quickly in College Station without me being there to see them. :(

Having the quiet hour while Daniel slept was much helpful in my beginning to feel more confident about CI. The one thing I've found that helps me be the most comfortable going into the seminar is to have the songs and verses down backwards and forwards and inside out. Sometimes you think you know something until you're standing up in front of 80 kids and they're waiting for you to teach them the next line...and suddenly it's not there!! I haven't yet found much worse than that panicky moment when you stare blankly into the sea of faces trying to remember what comes next. Last year I was much more confident about both songs and verses and the seminar was just FUN! Between Paris and working 40 hours a week (a first for me while planning CI!) I've been struggling to find time to really focus on memorization. The teacher training is somehow much easier for me to pick up here and there and write a little but I feel like I have to have a chunk of time to really focus on verses. Then there's always so much to do at the house! But being here at Stephen & Melody's apartment there were no distractions (with Daniel asleep hehe), and total silence for concentration. It's not completely there yet but I do know it enough now that I can practice in the shower or in the car. :) Biggest hurdle done!! Songs are much easier.

I'm so very excited about the program this year. I always am and I don't know if it's MORE than other years but I was telling my friend Abby that my role with CI right now is exactly what I LOVE doing. If I could do this a couple of times a year it would be so very awesome! It made it so very hard to turn Amy down when she asked if I could possibly stay long enough to help with their missionary retreat in the Alps in Oct/Nov.

I'm soooo very excited about Paris right now I could just burst. I will admit I waffle between feeling homesick in advance and wanting to run around like a five year old with the thrill of it. I wish I could just teleport back and forth between here and there, it would make things so much easier!! I'm hoping I can think to bring everything that would be useful and know what to not bring because it will just be in the way. I do finally have both of my suitcases in my room ready to go and they have about three things in them (a sweater, a hoodie, and my power converter). Very soon I will begin packing more in earnest! I'm hoping to take a few things that will help me feel more comforted and like I'm close to home, like candles with familiar scents and my big memory board that Erin gave me that has pictures of me and friends. :) I want to replace a couple of the pictures, hopefully I'll find time to print them out. There were a few I would like to have taken with me and various ones but oh well. I just wish there were more time between CI and when I leave because I know I'd like to have been able to have some of those pictures!!

Well I've spent as much time as I dare not working on CI or Paris for now, please continue to pray for me to have clarity of thought and for finances! I know God is so good about providing us with exactly what we need when we need it. I'm looking forward to seeing how everything comes together!

plotting and planning

My how the time is fleeting until CI and Paris...I'm so worried I'm going to forget something vitally important for one or the other until it's too late! The other night I dreamed I made it to Paris and opened my suitcase and I'd forgotten to pack clothes. I'm sure that won't happen but it made for a stressful dream.

One of the super cool things about this whole adventure (yes adventure and I haven't even left yet!) is that a friend of a friend also got on the Mission Nannys' site and got connected with a family in Rome. She left a week ago! I've been reading her blog and enjoying it so much. It's so obviously God's plan for her to be there and it awes me to have been used as an instrument to point her in that direction. How amazing is our God?? We haven't even met officially but we've been chatting some and I am picking up a kindred spirit vibe. :) Those are few and far between so it's pretty cool. We are determined to meet when I get back from Paris. She comes home the end of August and I won't be home for another month so we will pass each other.

I also love how God cares about the small things. One day I was chatting with my friend Jen who lives in London about what I would need to plug my American electronics into the European outlets. She showed me exactly what to buy and I bookmarked it to remember to purchase later. Less than twelve hours had passed before I received an email from my Mamma saying she'd found two of the exact converters I needed and would love for me to use them if I wanted or needed them. I had not even told anyone yet about it!

On the CI front we've had quite the time of it with our curriculum this year. I think it's because of the brand new-ness that we've had so many lines crossed but we originally received the old version of the curriculum we wanted whereas I'd been working the last month off the new version (different crafts and memory verses). Thanks to my wonderful friend Sarah who made a LOT of phone calls for me we got to the bottom of the mix up and will be receiving the correct curriculum soon. It was beginning to bother me since we are getting down to the wire!

I'm beginning to think I might start actually packing some clothes soon. Some of the things I'm going to be taking are more fall-ish (for Houston weather anyway) and I most certainly will not be wearing them here before then. I also thought of packing things like hairspray and the like. There will still be plenty left for me to do the night before I'm sure! But I have this basket in my room of miscellaneous clothing items that should have been packed away in the out of season box but never did so I'd like to go ahead and get all of that type of thing taken care of and leave a nice clean room to come home to. I also should put away some of these piles, especially the one on my bed...hmm...

Overheard at CI....

"Scare the womens every day!"


"If you make the princess in the story named Miss Megan she will like it and loosen up so you can finish it."


"I have all that stuff you guys do at home because I went to Big Sandy!"

The Houston CI has a website!

Thanks to several people the Houston IBLP seminars have their own websites now including the Children's Program! You can check it out here. It's pretty spiffy. :-) You might also see some faces you recognize...

Houston CI, part 2

Okay I promised and I did hear some of you did enjoy my first installment so here is the second. Sorry for the delay!!

Well on Friday morning I was not really feeling excited about how my part of large group was going. Things just weren't flowing and didn't feel right and the kids were very chatty. After one particularly rough large group was over though it was like a big DUH. Ben said, "Megan we haven't been praying before we come out for large group." HELLO, earth to Megan!!! I also decided to get Mrs. Lawless & Mrs. Fessenden in on it and gave them a schedule of our large group assured me they would be praying during those times. What a dramatic difference!! I have always believed it but now more than ever I am firmly convinced prayer is most of the work. The weekend was so packed I don't know that I could even post all the pictures but I will see if I can't get one picture from each skit and I will try to put them in the right order.


This was the Authority skit with the parachutist (our parents are our parachutes).


This one is the God's Omelette where David (unsucessfully) tries to keep all of God's commandments (you break one you break them all).


So...hahaha...this was the Pocket Watch story which I always remember being horribly sad. Somehow they made it funny?? And still got the point across. Who knew!!



We had a game time which went over quite well!! This is dodgeball -- teachers versus kids. Hah.

Hockenstock! This one is about different kinds of lies (for Responsibility).


Job...

The Rose (Love)



The frisbee chasing dog.


The Muddy Glove illustration done in a skit. This was a first for me to see as well and it turned out absolutely hysterical (okay so they were all super funny!)

Parent Presentation!

And last but not least, Musical Chairs! The theme behind this one was the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

So that was the totally crazy, absolutely fun, and completely insane weekend of CI 2008. :-) I was sorry to see it end. I really wish if I was going to put all the work into it that I could do it two or three times in one year. Oh well, hopefully we'll be doing it again next year. :-)

Houston CI, part 1

Wow, where to begin on such a packed week? For me it probably began about the first week of June. Curriculum had to be ordered, staff found, teachers recruited...not anything terribly time consuming until we discovered the catch this year--the Institute was not sending all of our supplies on the big truck. We had to purchase everything ahead of time ourselves. Cue major panic! Where was the money supposed to come from? How many kids should we prepare for? What am I doing???

Of course the more I contemplated the bigger the questions seemed to be and the fewer the answers I had. Things couldn't just be "simple" this year because that would be easy. Melanie and I had quite a few Google Talk, AIM, email, and phone conversations trying to hash it all out. I remembered how busy poor Melody stayed last year in materials and that was just sorting through the boxes of supplies already sent for us.

When we had enough teachers for 12 teams sign up it was decided to halt further recruitment. That was probably plenty of teams for 100ish kids and still plenty should we have more than 100 (I was thinking optimistically of course!). Melanie and I had decided to plan for 100 kids since we'd had around 86 last year, but after pre-registration ended at 20 the numbers given us were that we should plan for 50. That made me nervous!!! Monday before the conference Hannah and I decided to go ahead and buy the craft supplies even though we hadn't yet received the money for it. I didn't think we could wait any longer. Since we were buying ahead anyway, we bought for 70 and hoped we could make it work at least the first night should we have more kids. At this point I was waffling back and forth over whether or not I had way over-prepared with the number of teachers. As I was reading through the curriculum and making teacher training notes I came across "El Shaddai" which means "All Sufficient One". It talked about faith and trusting God to give us everything we needed. It was almost as if God said to me there "You have trusted me for money, you have trusted me for food--do you not trust Me to bring you children?" Ouch!!!

On Wednesday, Sara, Hannah, and I met at the Bogners' house for some craft prep. The goal was to have all the supplies cut out and sorted but of course it took much longer than we hoped. The guess is that we spent around seven hours cutting thread, dowel rods, little boys and girls, and miscellaneous other shapes. Ben and Emily drove in at some point in the evening and helped cut as well but we still didn't finish.

Thursday we headed to the church and brought all our stuff upstairs. Since several volunteers made it there early for teacher training we put them right to work!!


The afternoon went very quickly between teacher training and preparing the rooms. The children began arriving around 6:15 and kept coming until 8:00! Before all was said and done we had 93 kids!! God is so good. :)




For all my friends who taught CI growing up I had to be sure to tell you which stories and songs we did and include a few pictures. The first night our song was "Consider the Ant" and we used the Camel for Design. Stephen was pretty hilarious as the camel and actually drank I think a 2 liter bottle of water on stage.


So that is all the pre-seminar stuff and Thursday, hopefully part 2 will come tomorrow with the rest of CI. :)

Houston Children's Institute, July 17-19

Wow what a weekend!! It was absolutely amazing, completely exhausting, and totally crazy!!! To start with I had some amazing friends helping me and have to say thank you to them first.


Hannah -- You are SO AWESOME for helping with the craft prep!! I could never have done all of that myself and probably would have given up and sat in the middle of the floor crying. I wuvs you!!



Aaress & Tim -- Fabulous work on Wisdom Walk. You really helped keep the stage crew free to prepare for large groups (or catch our breaths) and materials was able to keep everyone stocked, all because of YOU. :)


Erin -- it was so cool to have you there this year! I know you didn't have much to do officially but unofficially you were such a help since you were available to run errands, get drinks, and be in skits. I love ya girl!!!


Sara -- The pictures are fabulous and you were such a help to have around!! It was really fun being able to work with you again. :)


Melanie -- The planning ahead of time was so much easier with you to ask headquarters all the questions for me! I don't know who to talk to about anything so I would have been totally lost. Also you did a wonderful job with games. :D


Amy -- once again it was sooo much fun working with you on stage. I can't imagine doing it by myself and having you familiar with stage work really helped.


Ben -- I can't even begin to describe how grateful I am for you driving down and being our ring leader. :) You are absolutely a natural both at working on stage with the kids and keeping leaders in line haha! I hope to have the privilege of working with you again someday!!



There are so many parts to this whole weekend that I am afraid I will forget something. God really worked in so many incredible ways and I really want to try to share as many of them as possible. I am going to post in parts so that it is easier to do some now and more later. Look for part complete with pictures soon!

One week and counting...

CI is next Thursday through Saturday. We only had 13 kids preregistered as of 4 PM Tuesday. I hope we get more kids or we're only going to have one kid per team hah! Some lucky team will get two kids. ;) I am trying to write teacher training and finish memorizing hand motions but my brain is foggy... :(

Teachers needed!!

Hey everybody we are gearing up for the Houston seminars this July 17-19 and need teachers for the Children's Institute!! If you are interested in helping please let me know so I can send you an application. You can email us here. The clock is ticking so please let us know soon!!

Save the date!

Houston Children's Institute

July 17-19

More details coming soon...