Sub-sistence

Okay, long commercial break over. We are on Saturday now I believe:

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7AM:  Lights turned on outside in the hallway, I wake up for the last time with a little headache but much less exhausted since going to bed.  I was exhausted because for three out of the four days prior I was up before 6AM looking for subbing jobs.  I found them, but the toll it took was severe.  So another sub-8 hour night, but I figured I would survive.  So everyone got up and I let some kids head to the bathroom to change out of their night clothes (they were too modest to change in front of others even if we were all guys- just wait until middle school boys, when you’ll be changing in the locker room in front of even more people).  Myself, I just wore my day clothes to bed- I had showered and put on some fresh clothes just before coming to the retreat so I would be able to do this.  20 minutes later, we were in line for breakfast.  The end of the line.  Oh, well.  Eggs, sausage, french toast sticks, fruit, and OJ.  Well, I think they were sausages- didn’t taste much like breakfast sausage.

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8AM: Eyes are really bugging me.  The clothes weren’t the only things I left on overnight.  The contacts I have are extended wear, so I figured at least once I could wear them overnight.  I had successfully worn them during naps before so I figured I could get away with overnight just once.  My eyes disagreed.  I put drops in when I woke up and several times since, but no go.  Eventually I just gave up and went back to my room to take them out and put on my glasses.  Unfortunately the damage had been done and my eyes would be bugging me for most of the day.  So, time for session 2 now.  Each session started with a video that was just pure entertainment.  I came back at the end of this video to sit with my guys (the high school leader in my room was keeping watch while I changed into my glasses).  Up front game again- this time it involved two from each team, a boy and a girl, one from my own cabin (you can figure out which one…).  The boys had to wear shaving cream on their faces and the girls threw cheese puffs on them.  Hilarious.  At the end of the time the one with the most cheese puffs stuck to them would win.  In the end I think one other team had more than us, but their boy made the mistake of moving before they could be counted, losing half a dozen puffs.  We won.  Come to think about it, I think we won Friday night too.  Worship followed with another four songs like last night.

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9AM:  Worship continued, and then Dr. Brian came on the scene and taught from Jonah 3, when the story started over with a better response from Jonah and this time and the Ninevites took the warning God gave them through Jonah seriously.  According to the Bible, they all repented of their wicked ways and came to God, and He spared them.  This has a fairly obvious (I hope) correlation to coming to Christ.  We even ended the time with a prayer giving the kids an opportunity to repent themselves and accept Jesus.  One of my guys raised his hand.  Unfortunately for me I had to let my high school leader- did I mention he was my high school leader at camp just two summers ago?- take the pleasure in talking to him about it during small group time since we decided to split the group for today’s small group times so we would each take five, and the boy who just accepted Christ was one of his five.  Since my cabin was being used for piano lessons, we had to use the room across from us.  We could have had both groups in there, but Eric decided to take his group elsewhere.  We talked about listening to God and accepting Christ for the next half hour.  My church being what it is, by fourth grade it seems that 90% say they have already accepted Jesus at some point, so I decided to lead the discussion in who Jesus is to them to let them see if they truly understand what it means to accept Him.

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10AM:  At this time we were supposed to start cleaning up the cabin.  Of course with piano lessons we had to wait so I let them exchange phone numbers with each other instead before we finally had to sneak in and grab our coats for game time downstairs.  The game time was split in two this time with two teams playing each other in a game outside and in the gym.  We were outside first.  Has anyone ever played a game where a balloon is tied to your ankle and you have to try to pop everyone else’s balloon before someone pops yours?  This game was similar.  A popsicle (still in its plastic!) was taped to the kids’ arms and they had to try to rip them off of the other team.  Once a child’s popsicle was lost, he or she was out.  Last one standing won.  Well, at the end of the time the team with the most standing won, which was the other team.  Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.  No, the kids couldn’t eat the popsicles during the game but they could at the end.

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11AM: The teams switched.  The second game was ice block relay.  Only, one of the ice blocks broke so it became scooter relay instead, at least for the boys.  I think next year they need to create extra blocks,  several extras.  Yes, this was the indoor game.  One camper sitting on the block of ice, another camper had to push the other to the other end of the gym where they would switch places and come back.  With one block broken, the boys were on scooters (the square variety that you sit on, not the sort that is long with a handlebar) the entire time while the girls got to play the game with the ice blocks.  At this time I felt like I was coming down with something.  I sat down most of the time against they gym wall.  At the end of this time we had won three games out of four, but since they had won the popsicle game it looked like they won overall.  We went back to our cabins to take off our coats and head down for lunch.  We weren’t last this time.

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12 noon:  I have to say I was very disappointed in this lunch.  It was chicken nuggets and mac & cheese.  Only, there was nothing to dip the nuggets in and the other dish was more macaroni than cheese.  In fact, I couldn’t taste any cheese at all.  The economy is affecting everyone, and it certainly took a tool on the food here.  One leader commented that he had eaten more junk over the last three meals than he had over the last six months.  Hmm.  Dessert was- not for me.  I am one who doesn’t like yogurt unless it’s the frozen variety and this is what they served.  Well, the lemonade was good.  At the end of this meal I finally had to pull the pastor aside and inform him that I was running a fever and my eyes were still bugging me.  Since I wasn’t feeling nauseous he suggested I just stay and rest during the next session which followed lunch and see if I improved.  After a short lunch, session 3 began.  The game this time had something to do with singing familiar tunes, but I don’t know exactly, nor who won.  I was in the back of the room with my eyes shut trying to rest.  The game leader I mentioned from Friday who stayed in our room because it was the one his boy was in kind of took over for me.

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1PM: Session 3 continued.  Worship, then the message by Dr. Steve on Jonah chapter 4 which I didn’t hear, and then small groups.  We had our small group time in our cabin (piano lessons were over) while Eric took his group back where they were earlier.  Again, I didn’t lead but sat while my stand-in took over.  In the end he had everyone take turns praying, which I was willing to do at least, but he chimed in immediately after the last boy.  No big deal.  We got ready for the final game.

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2PM:  Outside first again, the game this time was shooting popsicle sticks onto the church roof with really big slingshots.  You read that right.  They would have to pass a popsicle stick from camper to camper with their arms only and then the last one would run with the popsicle to the slingshot, set it in place, pull it back, and hope the popsicle made it to the upper roof for the greater point bonus.  Then (s)he would run to the end of the line and start passing a popsicle all over again.  Once all had the opportunity to shoot the popsicles, the game was over.  Our team finished first if I recall correctly for both the boys and the girls (who were in separate lines), but I don’t know who won for sure, only suspect from what place we finally came in for the entire day.  The second game was inside the gym again, where we played human foosball.  If you don’t remember this game from the other times I’ve written about it, it’s a game where the students are in four lines, hands held together, trying to kick really big balls into the other team’s goal.  The number of balls, and even the goals, changed over the course of the game.  The other team toasted us, but that was only because of one leader they had at the end of the offensive line who kicked in a good 60+% of their goals.  We had a leader at the end of our offensive line too, but he was smaller (a high-school freshman vs a leader in his 20s) and didn’t score nearly as much.  About this time I was on the upswing, feeling better overall.

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3PM: Time for the group picture.  Donning our coats once again, we headed back outside for the final time.  The children’s pastor, Steve, stood on the roof with someone else whose name escapes me and took a few pictures with his, I believe, video camera.  Meaning in the retreat video there may be more than just a couple of still pictures of this event.  Afterward, they both grabbed all the popsicles from the slingshot game and tossed them onto the ground.  A few of the more competitive kids grabbed the and… threw them back up!  It was wild out there for a bit.  After the popsicles were gone from the roof, they started throwing snowballs down at us.  This was more acceptable to be thrown back as snow doesn’t make as good a tasty treat as popsicles, so more joined in returning fire.  Eventually this all ended and we headed back in to clean our cabin and bring everything down to the gym.  After all, they would need the classrooms for church at 5:00.  I made sure everything was picked up, and even had to look for the owner of a pair of socks.  I found out when I got home that of course I left my own pair of socks from the night before (one article of clothing I did change).  Hopefully whoever found them wasn’t too disgusted as I had worn them for only a few hours.

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4PM: All packs brought down and the room cleaned up, we started free time.  This time wasn’t really very free, but the kids were free to be in one of four places for the next hour and a half.  In the gym they could play nuke ‘em, another game returning from summer camp played on a volleyball court.  They could watch a movie in another room- they showed Up!, a movie I recently watched in Blu-ray.  In a third room they could play board games or, eventually, watch some of Wall-E.  In the last room they could do crafts or play other games.  I floated around this entire time, keeping track as best I could of my cabin.  Most of my kids spent their time in the gym, so I did as well.

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5PM: Free time continued until 5:30, afterwhich we had dinner.  Dinner was better than lunch and consisted primarily of spaghetti.  Not much to say here really.

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6PM: Dinner wrapped up and we moved into the worship/lesson area and watched videos until church ended and the parents started coming in.  Once everyone was there, the final up front game commenced.  A father-son team was called up from the leaders who were there the entire time with their sons and they played the frozen t-shirt game, where wet t-shirts were folded up and frozen.  The dads had to try to get them apart and on their sons.  Our team won again, giving us at least three of the four up front games.  After this, we sang one worship song, Steve talked about the retreat to the parents, and jokingly as an afterthought the winner was announced.  Since we came in third place, I suspect we won none of the big games.  Remember, while I was able to see who won some of the games, I did not know who won Friday night nor who won the popsicle slingshot game.

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7PM: Parents were permitted to take their kids home and the gym rapidly emptied of parents, kids and their packs.  I got to go home and enjoy my fever which, while I was feeling better Saturday afternoon, still persisted through the weekend and made a return Tuesday, keeping me home from work.

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Well, that’s it.  I hope you enjoyed the read.  I just spent the last hour and a half writing this second part, so please excuse me for not going back and proofreading it.

Best winter retreat ever!  I had so much fun that nothing could possibly compare.  I wish I could say that was this weekend but that wouldn’t be honest of me.  For sure, many can say that and completely mean it as it really was a good retreat.  The reason will become clear, and you may even find it foreshadowed before I come out with it.  From the beginning:

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Friday

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6PM: Arrived shortly before this time, late for the 5:45 call time.  I thought I was ready, but of course remembered a few more things before I left.  At least I did remember everything.  In the past I have been left with no pillow, no deodorant, or similar mishaps.  Was given a gift bag at the meeting containing essentials- sugar, water, t-shirt, hand-warmers…  The latter was most likely due to last year’s bitter cold retreat- something that was blessedly not repeated this year, at least for this group (high school suffered just a couple of weekends ago).  Oh, anyone for some gum?  I got a box, but I don’t chew it.  Just send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope and I will ship it off. )Meeting ended, we took our posts for check-in which began at 6:15.  I was a greeter by the boy’s area.  For awhile I was a little nervous as I only had two arrivals for my “cabin” (room) while others had four or five, but I needn’t have worried- in the end every camper (retreater?) of mine showed up- others weren’t so lucky.  I think about ten boys failed to show up- the fairer section fared about the same.

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7PM:  Check-in starts to die down.  Did I mention all of my campers showed up?  Actually, I did lose one.  There are two mentally disabled 4th-graders at my church and their dads (who stayed with them) wanted to be in the same cabin.  While changing cabin assignments was generally not allowed, we made an exception for them.  In fact, neither of them wound up in their original cabin as ours were pretty full, but in one that had lost two boys who didn’t make it.  Anyway, throughout this time, after letting them drop off their things, we sent them down to watch Jonah until the arrivals trickled down.  Jonah would be the theme of the retreat.  At about 7:25, the last of us headed to the movie area where the intro was made and we were sent off to start the first big game of the weekend.

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8PM:  My assignment- auditor.  I stood by an opposing team’s drop-off bin, where the kids would drop off all their treasures.  Oh?  I never mentioned the teams?  Well, there are four teams, following the theme from summer camp which was a medical theme this year.  I was a Mr. Yuk over the summer but this time was a Red Cross.  The cabins were actually given names.  Do you remember when Sly mouthed “You’re the disease- I’m the cure” (paraphrased) in a movie 20ish years ago?  Well, the boys were the diseases with cabin names like H1N1, TB, and Mad Cow Disease and the girls were the cures (Neosporin, Aspirin, etc.).  My cabin was SARS.  So back to the game, auditors made sure the kids were following the rules.  This may be church, but you know some kids- suddenly forgetful of the rules when it could gain an advantage if you know what I mean.  Here’s what the game was- in pairs, the kids would link up (hold hands or arms) and search for little plastic ducks and reflectors strewn all over the church.  When they found one, they had to get to their team bin.  Throughout this, there were over a dozen leaders going after the kids with dodge-balls in hand trying to “infect” them.  That may sound like a lot of leaders, but we’re talking about 150 kids!  If infected, they had to drop whatever they might have been holding and hightail it to the medic to be “cured.”  There were a few hundred of these things strewn about so the game lasted for awhile.

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9PM: Pizza!  Well, maybe I should have left that exclamation point off- we’re talking Papa John’s here.  If you’re not familiar with them, think mass pizza chains in the style of Pizza Hut or Domino’s and you will know what I’m talking about.  We chugged down pizza and pop and got ready for the first session, which started shortly after 9:45 with an upfront game followed by worship.  What is an upfront game?  Well, one camper (sometimes two) from each team was called up to play a silly or disgusting game- pure fun, though not always for the contestants…  Tonight was licking names off of a tray.  The catch?  Part of what was used in the writing was sardines- eww.  That’s apparently what the contestants thought too as none of them accomplished much in the allotted time.  Then worship began with singing.

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10PM:  The session continued.  Four worship songs later, Dr. John came out to teach (medical theme remember).  You know how busy doctors get, so Drs. Brian and Steve would round out the retreat the next day.  Starting in Jonah, we traversed chapters one and two alongside Jonah, teaching the kids about consequences of trying to ignore God and how God always pursues His children.  After the lesson we broke off into our cabins.  We were running late, so we kept the large group of ten kids and two leaders together and discussed the lesson, including a reading from Psalm 139:

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

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11PM:  Set up beds, get ready, and lights out.  Another leader, the game leader of the week joined us- his son was in our cabin.  He and I, the “old guys,” naturally brought air mattresses to go with our sleeping bags…  A little chaotic as expected, but by 20 minutes after lights-out time we finally got the boys laying in bed if not asleep yet.  Someone came in with a ladder to unscrew the emergency light bulbs- you know, one of those lights that stays on 24/7 even if the room switches are turned off.  This still left a flashing blue light from the router mounted in the ceiling unfortunately.  I hope it didn’t keep anyone awake.  I got this bright idea that I would just leave my contacts in all night since they are extended wear after all.  Up to this point I had done naps safely, so I figured why not?  I had drops to put in my eyes in the morning.

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Midnight: Finally asleep, or at least sometime before the next hour.

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Saturday

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Midnight-7AM: Z-z-z-z-wake up-z-z-z-z-wake up-z-z-z-z-you get the picture-z-z-z-z

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(to be continued)

Last weekend had some more involvement with kids than the usual weekend.  In addition to the two services where I serve with 4th and 5th grades, there was an earlier event for single moms, a Christmas party.  No, I am not a single mom, but I (along with another from my Monday small group) helped out by leading games in the gym for some of the boys who came with their moms.  The age range was about 3rd grade through 7th grade, with a couple data outliers (I think that’s the statistical term) in the form of one about six years old and another in 9th grade.  What does football have to do with this?  Well, Mike, the other one from my small group, brought along a football.  We started with just one 7th grade boy, one I knew very well by the way since he was in my cabin at summer camp a couple years ago, while the younger ones were listening to a Christmas story in the other room.  The three of us tossed around the ball for a bit before the rest came in, including more older ones (5th-9th grade) who joined us in a game of touch football played in half the gym- the volleyball ministry had the other half.  While Mike led his team as QB, as a non-sports guy I let the 9th-grader take that position considering he plays at his high school.  While we played, the younger ones played with various other balls, tricycles, and whatnot as Mike and I kept order.  Eventually some left for awhile to do crafts or something in another room, but the football game kept going.  It was a pretty fun afternoon.

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The lesson for the weekend was part two of Joseph.  Of course, most knew the story, but with these intermediate grades the focus is on application.  In this case, obedience and perseverance in our relationship with God even when things in our lives aren’t going so well.  On Saturday there are three leaders who rotate teaching from week to week so I never teach this service, but there are only two of us for Sunday, though somehow I still only teach every other month- huh.  The other one does two Sundays a month while one of the staff rotates in the months I am not on.  Well anyway this was my week so naturally I wore my bright yellow overalls I wore when I was in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat several years ago.  I also sang from some of the songs from the show as we talked about Joseph before Pharaoh (where we left off last time), Joseph finally getting his reward after 13 years of obedience during hardship, and later Joseph before his brothers who were trying to get food during the seven years of famine.  It was a fun lesson though I think I went a little long.

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So that was my weekend in a nutshell.  I’ll have to think about if there is anything to write about my two days of subbing this week- one in early childhood, one in 7th grade science.  Until then.

Okay, those are two things mashed together in the title describing events of Wednesday, my only day of subbing this week (though I am still trying for some Friday work).  What happened to Tuesday?  Well, I had to push my Monday photo work to Tuesday due to that annoyance to the daily routine known as jury duty, or in my case non-duty.  Fortunately no driving was required for this civic duty as the location was Chicago.  In fact, I would just not show up rather than drive there due to the ridiculous traffic.  Fortunately, the train stations are within walking distance both from my home and the courthouse in the city.  I also was glad this was the civil court instead of the criminal one- I don’t know how people are able to serve on juries for criminal trials that can often take weeks to complete.  I realize jobs can’t fire you for jury duty but they don’t have to pay you, and that lack of pay would be a huge problem, at least for me.  You noticed, I’m sure, that I wrote “non-duty” earlier.  What actually happened was my group got called down (while I was in the bathroom no less) and we went down to a courtroom, only to wait and be told that the two parties came to a settlement so no jury would need to be picked.  So we went back up to the jury waiting room in case we might be needed again.  About an hour later we were called up again, jury trial take two, or so I thought.  However, this time we were given our checks and sent home- I guess being called up once can count as our civic duty even if we didn’t make it to jury selection, let alone trial.  We did have to wait until they were sure we would no longer be needed though.  With half the day still left, I stopped for lunch since the next train wouldn’t depart for another 45 minutes.  Unfortunately, with the light leaving us earlier these days I was not able to go to even one of the dealers since I couldn’t be sure how long it would take and didn’t want to make a wasted hour round-trip anywhere.  Yes, I could have blogged Monday, but I just wasn’t up to it.

Which leads us to the topic of the title, my sub-job Wednesday.  I had to get up at 5:30 to start looking since it is near impossible this year to get a sub job in advance for some reason.  I somehow managed to secure one at a nearby school in their mentally-impaired program.  I must remember never to show up any later than 10-minutes early at this school.  I was right on time, but ended up about ten minutes late because they closed the lot by the front doors due to buses meaning I had to ask where the other lot was, wait in traffic to get to it, suffer leagues of parents dropping off their kids in the very same lot, find a spot, then walk a quarter mile back to the front doors of the school.  I did note there were still spots left in the front lot as I headed to the doors.

So I eventually made it to the classroom, somehow still before the kids arrived to the class (though I still had to work my way around several at their lockers).  Being a MI class there were of course teaching assistants so I was able to cool down from the hassle of my arrival.  They showed me the schedule for the day, but being Vet’s day that schedule was just made to be broken.  Instead of an hour of guided reading, for example, they had maybe 20 minutes before heading to their 2nd-grade buddy class.  That teacher talked a little bit about Veteran’s Day, and then a couple of soldiers came in to visit- one from the Army, the other a Marine.  Both had served time in you-know-what part of the world (the marine couldn’t tell us where- essentially saying it was classified, but the army soldier had been to Afghanistan).  They talked a little about what they did, what life was like with their respective units, and their families.  The 2nd-graders had written several questions to ask them during their visit.  It was quite interesting.  Once the principal came in and whisked them to their next class to visit, we headed back to our own room for snack time.  The next schedule change came during this time.  Just as they finished eating and sat down to read silently, in walks a vet.  Okay, she wasn’t a vet but I just had to use that play on words.  Notice how I didn’t capitalize the word this time?  That’s because this person was a pet therapist, if not a veterinarian.  Both work with pets, though for different reasons- oh never mind.  So my pun didn’t work- sue me.

Anyway, the therapist reminded the kids how to handle the dog (apparently she had been here before), making sure they let this lap dog sniff their hands before they could pet him.  She also taught them how to give the dog treats (in an open hand, because the dog could bite your fingers if you hold the treat by the thumb and forefinger).  She also had the dog do some tricks.  The kids one at a time rolled a die and the dog would jump through a hoop for the number of times it showed, then later they did dog bowling where the kids would hide a treat among foam pins, and the dog would knock a number of them down to get to the treat.  Cute.

The kids got their silent reading in, and then we skipped math to do calendar in the short time left before lunch.  This is where the next part of the title comes into play- the look of surprise on a 5th-grader’s face when you sneak up behind him while he’s eating lunch and ask him a question in a place he does not expect to hear or see his church and summer camp leader as he turns and recognizes me.  Priceless.  As I talked to him, two more kids from my church got up to talk to me- one of whom I was going to talk to next, the other a surprise to me.  What was funny about this encounter was the girl who I had worked with in church drama last year didn’t know what to call me since she only remembered my first name, which is what I use at church- Mr. Derek.  She had clearly been taught to not use an adult’s first name at school.  Maybe I told her last year, I don’t know.  I didn’t know the third one came to this school, but this school being the closest to my church means several kids do happen to attend school here.  I know of three others in the junior high area who I know I have mentioned before (two are the girl’s brothers, twins whom I have also worked with at church).

The rest of the day was pretty mild.  I had an extra half-hour off due to the kids going to music, and when they came back we scrapped writing for some reason to watch part of a movie.  You know, I don’t think I have ever watched 101 Dalmatians before even though I kind of know the story.  We only watched a little bit of it before getting ready to go home, where I rested up until choir rehearsal, where I just want to mention that another pair of twins I taught a few years ago are regularly a part of- they finally came down to the tenor section after singing alto for the last couple of years (hey, they were 12-13 at the time!).  I can even name a couple more sets of twins and a set of triplets too.  I don’t know why, but they are not all that uncommon at my church.  Well, if I can think of some story to write about them sometime I may say some more.

When mentioning costumes for the 5th grade class I subbed for last week, I forgot to mention one other costume.  Or two, rather, though only one of them was in my class.  It is strange it slipped my mind because this boy was wearing a video-game-related costume which was very good.  He came as Mario, complete in the right colors with hat, large white cartoon gloves, and of course, mustache (though this piece kept falling off).  I mentioned to him that with his build he might have made a good Luigi too, but his costume did have the extra padding to make him pudgy ala Mario.  During the costume show, who walked across the stage with (I think) a third-grade class but Luigi, which from a distance also looked pretty good.  When our Mario waved to him I figured they were brothers, but when I asked him about it the only fraternal relationship was in the characters, so this just made for a cool coincidence.

I said I would mention Friday night, so I am finally getting around to it.  Friday night was our second annual movie night for 4th and 5th grade.  Last year we saw the excellent Meet the Robinsons.  This year was Bolt.  Having never seen this movie before I was looking forward to it even if I wouldn’t really get to see if I had to keep too much of a watchful eye on the kids (as it happily turns out, my fears here were unfounded and I was able to watch the whole thing).  Before the movie, however, there was game and pizza time.  This year they separated the boys and the girls so one group was playing games while the other ate.  We started out in the gym.  There was a fun game set up called “the gauntlet” but before we did that we warmed up with another game, link tag.  No, this has nothing to do with:

though that’s a hilarious Family Guy-esque video (click to see it in a larger size).  It is a game with one (or a few) runner(s) and one (or a few) tagger(s) with the rest spread out, standing linked in pairs.  At any time the runner can link up with one pair and the person on the opposite side would become a new runner so the pair doesn’t become a trio.  If the tagger tags the runner, the runner becomes the tagger and the former tagger links up with a pair and a new person becomes the runner.  I think we had played this before a couple of years ago, calling it squirrel tag.  After this game came- The Gauntlet.  This is just as insidious as it sounds.  The kids have to run through a course, going over or under as the course dictates, while trying to avoid getting hit by balls thrown by us leaders (heh, heh…).  If hit, they would have to go back to the beginning.  For those of you crying “aww, no fair for the kids,” don’t worry- they got their turn getting back at us.  I didn’t make it very far…

So for food time, we had pizza.  I was expecting the variety made in our church’s kitchen, but it turned out they ordered from Little Caesars.  The parents had to pay for this event, so why not?  This was the time where we leaders got to hang out with a few boys sitting together, thereby selecting our small groups for the end of the night.  After the boys grabbed their dinner, I waited a minute or so before grabbing my own and sitting down with four boys.  There were almost a dozen guy leaders, so the small groups were quite small.  There were more girls and fewer girl leaders present, so their groups I understand were a bit larger.  Did I mention this was an outreach event?  The kids were encouraged to invite friends who didn’t normally come to our church, so it turned out that two of these boys were such invitees.  In fact, both were invited by one of the other boys, but all four actually knew each other from school.  After a brief time in conversation with them, it was time for the movie.  We cleaned up and headed to the learning center where the movie was shown on two screens.  We were supposed to sit with our groups, but the boys kind of crowded together, so I sat in the row right in front of them instead.  Don’t worry, the seating was tiered and the screens high up besides so I didn’t block their view.

As I wrote, we were able to enjoy the whole movie with no more distraction than some kids going to the bathroom now and again.  They even provided popcorn for the whole movie experience.  Now, I typically say I don’t like popcorn all that much, but it is strange that I typically find myself eating it anyway, and this night was no exception.  While not in the same class as Meet the Robinsons IMHO, I still enjoyed this movie about a dog raised thinking his “human” was a spy constantly threatened by the evil Dr. Calico (with his evil cats of course) and that he was a superhero- managing to escape from his trailer, he heads out on a mission to save his human whom he thought was captured (they ended the day’s shooting on this cliffhanger) but in fact headed home as this was after all just a TV show no matter what Bolt was raised to believe.

Finally, Pastor Steve came out and talked a little, focusing on superheroes and how God is the only superhero.  It was just a bit more exciting than what I just wrote, but you get the idea.  We then broke into our small groups and talked some more about it, ending with handing out Gospel tracts that folds in several ways to reveal the message.  I actually picked up a fifth boy who hadn’t been selected already by another leader so I may have ended up with the largest boy’s group of the night.  I felt the discussion went very well.  The two visitors actually attended different churches, so they weren’t as green as expected in an outreach event, but that was okay as I’m sure everyone still picked up something from the small group, especially on sharing Christ with others if they had already had a relationship with Him.

It was a great night- I can’t wait for Winterblast in a few months- the overnighter at the church.  The only disappointing time was seeing another fifth-grade boy at the church with his mom for a single-parents meeting who chose to not attend movie night because the ones he wanted to invite were not in 4th or 5th grade, which I learned was sort of a limit in this event though not strictly enforced.

It has been a few weeks now with nary a post from me.  You’d think in all that time I would actually have something to say, but sad to say I don’t.  Not much at least.  This new job so far is keeping me a little poorer than subbing alone.  Finding half-days for subbing to go along with this job is not easy and I have gone a few days without.  Also, I just learned my commission is based monthly so the couple of weeks I was ahead did not make up for the weeks I was behind.  Base only again.  Sigh.  Soon…  This season has been none too friendly for this job either.  About 70% rain in the last couple of weeks.  In fact, I had to completely take off Friday and go to one of the dealers Saturday instead.  I wanted to go to the other one tomorrow since it’s Columbo day (or something like that… ) and therefore no chance of subbing, but it looks like the rain will likely make a return.  Looks like I’ll have to take half a day off of subbing Tuesday instead.  I already took a half-day sub job, and have jobs for Thursday and Friday as well, so aside from Wednesday I’m pretty set for this week.

Speaking (writing?) of subbing, no interesting subbing stories I’m afraid.  Mostly upper grades (4th+) and once with a student teacher whose observing professor came in to watch her teach.  I am now two days toward the five I need in order to get paid for the annual sub-training in Hometown district- both middle school days.  The last one was science.  I essentially led a small chemistry project for 8th grade.  I hope their teacher gave them more time the next day as no one finished.

Then there’s church, something I haven’t written about much lately.  I have been able to give four of my five cabin kids their DVDs I made.  Unfortunately the fifth hasn’t been to church in awhile due to multiple surgeries- yes, the one with the dwarfism condition (is there an official name?  I suppose if I had ever watched Little People, Big World I would know).  They are just trying to fix his body, but even with a lack of an emergency which would normally lead to invasive surgery, I’m sure it is still trying for him and his parents- and undoubtedly painful.  I pray he recovers well.

Well, sorry there isn’t much here.  Hopefully I’ll have at least one more post before all of you come out this way.  I’ll try to be less lazy about posting interesting news and links as well.  I think there were a couple, but I can’t recall at the moment.

Whew- what a scorcher this day was!  I am certain temperatures were in the 90s…  The kids certainly got no breaks at meals with drinks other than plain water.  Normally, they have to drink a glass or two of water at lunch or dinner, and then they can have punch or lemonade but for most of this week it was just water.  Of course they could get pop or Gatorade during canteen time, but for meals it was all water because it was so hot for most of the week.  It was so hot, they moved the normal Wednesday evening game to Thursday!

So today, the teaching was on the ears in the morning.  As for the ears, it is what we choose to hear: (1) What do we listen to, (2) Who do we listen to, and (3) How do we listen.  For (1) a big thing is music.  At their age it hasn’t become such a big deal yet, but we talked a little about it anyway. (2) involves what people they choose to listen to- besides their parents.  We will blissfully assume that they do listen to their parents. )Mostly this is about other kids or so-called role models who model inappropriate behavior- will they listen to such people or remember what the Bible says instead?  For (3), even if we listen to the right things, what do we do about it?  As the Bible teaches, we must be doers of the Word and not hearers only.  The evening message was about a crowded heart, one where Christ’s teachings are there, but crowded out by other things in our lives like TV, sports, internet (er- including this blog ), hanging out with friends, etc.  These things aren’t necessarily bad, but if there isn’t room for God then something has to go.  The memory verse was Proverbs 12:15: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,  but a wise man listens to advice.” Speaking of verses, today we added all the key verses around the room- the five memory verses and Psalm 51:10, an all-encompassing verse for the week (I’ll let you look that one up- you don’t expect me to do all the work for you, do you? )Incidentally, we won cleanest (boys) cabin for the second time this week!

Of the two game times, I unfortunately have no pictures for you.  In the morning, we played our nemesis team, the Biohazards- nemesis because we were the top two teams all week, dukin’ it out for first place.  The game was the obstacle course.  I really didn’t get any pictures here because I was helping out our team at one of the stations.  The stations included going through a tire, swinging across a hole with water (and a “6-foot leech”), navigating balance beams (logs) and stumps, going across tall monkeybars, a “meat grinder” (old wire/cable reel), going over a couple of walls, and going across steel cables (my station).  The kids had to help one another, and many came back when they were finished to help Diego out.

The evening game was against the same team.  It was another course to navigate, this time in the game field.  I have a video of just the course- I suppose I could upload it to Youtube or something later but it’s really not as exciting as I had hoped.  This time I didn’t help out at a station, but I only took videos with my camera this time around- no pictures.  We won this game, but mostly because we had less people on our team.  I have no idea who won the obstacle course but I suspect the other team got the nod making the two games a wash.

Today the kids got to do the all-time favorite instructional- the zipline.  Now, you may be thinking, “what kind of crazy camp allows children to use a zipline?”  Well, aside from the obvious answer that our camp does, let me explain that this zipline is not the sort where you hold on to some sort of handles while sliding down the cable, letting go when near the bottom onto a net or something soft.  No, these kids are strapped in and attached to the cable- there is no way they can fall, short of the cable breaking, and I am sure by law the camp has to make regular checks of the zipline to prevent that from happening.  At the bottom they are stopped by two burly staff members- one slows them down, the other stops them entirely and unclips them from the cable.  There are two lines, so two kids can go at once.  They had time to go down about a dozen times each even though three cabins were there (normally there are only two cabins at an instructional- I’m not sure why they did it this way).  The other instructional was biking, though this year I think they got less instruction than previous years.  The biking, by the way, was at the top of that hill I talked about in a previous post.  I think it is only 40-45°, but it feels more like 60-70° when climbing it!  By the way, it’s named after a student who went down this hill on a bike when she was in junior high.  She got to the bottom, flipped, and broke multiple bones.  Needless to say, bicycling down the hill is no longer allowed…

Well, I think that covers all the main stuff.  The afternoon canteen was at the swim front as it was every day, but hot as the day was, would you believe that only one of my kids hit the water?  Unbelievable.  I even joined him for a short time- the first time in all my years I have gone in the water- I have always been paranoid about wearing contacts in the lake.  Even this year when I did go in I made sure to wear goggles to protect my eyes, which worked for the most part.  I’m thinking of combining the last two days into one post to get it over with- what do you think?