Lets go, lets go. L.E.T.S.G.O.

This week was VBS at chapelwood. We did the cokesubry curriculum of Camp Edge. It was a good camp other than the music being able to easily stay in your head for days. I am still breaking out in song. Ahhhhh. I had the kids that were going into first grade. I thought this would be great because I love young children around the ages of 5-7. However, I had three that had varying levels of mental handicaps, and three girls who would not stop crying and fussing. When did 6-7 year olds turn to become so spoiled and crazy.


The "Lets go" for my week did not stop there. This weekend was my first Faith In Action camp in Lake Jackson. Faith In Action is a cooperative of churches in the area that put on 4 mission/service camps a year. This was the second one, but I did not go to this first this year because of my Emmaus walk. So after VBS Friday I went home did a little bit of cleaning up, went to look at a new car, and then went to St. Timothy's Episcopal church for Faith In Action. We played games and got everyone ready for work the next day. Saturday I spent most of the day driving from work site to work site handing out ice pops, frozen grapes, frozen towels, and spraying youth and adults off with ice cold water. This was not fun for me because the guy riding around with me would not get out of my car and kept getting mad that I would take my keys with me when I got out of the car. He is this guy from my church who is 30 and autistic and has this huge crush on me. I used to think this was sweet, but it is kind of annoying after a while. Saturday night we had a fun night of more games, ice cream (that I cannot eat), and worship.


Today was church and Rock Climbing with my youth. I let myself sleep in and go to late service. However, I left late service within five mins. of getting there. A Worship service that was not supposed to be announced in church was and well things had not been changed or talked about yet. So here is the information and why I was mad about this. A college age guy at the church asked a few weeks ago if he could hold a worship service or Bible study for college age people. The staff at the church have been so excited about it. That is we were excited until last Monday. A church wide email went out from one of the members saying that it was for College age and High School students. This is bad because we have a Bible study at the same time and same day. Also since I got to Chapelwood a Youth Programing Committee (YPC) was put together to help the youth ministry at the church run better. Part of the committees job is to regulate what is taught to the youth and what type of theology. Also what is offered to the youth as a programs. The college age guy did not come to the YPC and did not even talk to the head pastor or myself about offering it to high school age youth. I went to the Pastor last week and asked him to talk to the college age guy about the service and get this fixed or at least get him to talk to the YPC about his plans before anything else was announced about the worship service. The pastor agreed to what I proposed to him, yet the service was announced just as it had been the past week without any discussion and talk to the YPC.

Luckly Rock Climbing was fun. I had a blast with the youth who went. One of my girls, Laurel, asked me to sponsor her on the Chrysilas walk in two weeks. I just hope I can help make this an amazing experiance for her.

UM ARMY and First Love

This past week was amazing. We were up in a small east Texas twon called Wells. There are around 750 residents in the town and around 240 homes. This past week we worked on 20 of those homes!! It was amazing. Although I was not working on the sites because if programing and my allergic reaction to the sun, I am so proud of my youth. I got to know many of the non-active youth at Chapelwood aswell as some amazing adults. This week is one I will never forget.

The theme for UM ARMY was First Love. It focused on how God is really everyones first love in life. God gave us all love even before we asked for it becasue God loves us just that much. I was remineded many times of the Parable of the Good Sameritan. We were looking out into this community and helping those that many people had passed over in the past. The people we did work for were some of those who had given up on faith or were not included in many of the community events. It was amazing to hear the testamonies of the clients on cliant night. They really were in need of our help. I also found help this week. I have been having a hard time at Chapelwood and finding my place. I talked with this amazing pastor, who is on the BOM for Texas Conference. He was very supportive and gave me some amazing advice.

graduation, partys, and U.M. A.R.M.Y. planning

Oh my how busy this time of year is. I think that I must always take a vacation in May since I will be going through crazy summers.

Last week I had graduation for my high school seniors. It was outside in around 85% heat at 7:30pm. I ended up hanging out with Tyler, one of my youths boyfriends. We were cheering and running from one side of the field to another to see people graduate. I left early so that I could get out of the parking lot. Let me just say my car was parked at a 65% angle and it was crazy. I was so afraid it would roll down the hill even after I put the parking break on.

Then there was the parties. I have been going to graduation parties since I got back from my graduation. I have had a blast at all of them, but I have to say the cake at the last one was too cute. They made a three tiered book cake and the bottom book said Party and Boys. The top two were better with History and Science. I laughed so hard. There was crazy dancing and music. I was welcomed to Texas country dancing and learned to two-step. It was so funny to be two-stepping with my youth. There was also Bich's birthday party this weekend. It was fun and the band was not too bad. I hated having to leave so early because of work on Sunday, but that is the life of a minister.

Now for U.M. A.R.M.Y. planning. I think I am going to go crazy. I have so much to do and so little time. I have been ordering, printing, emailing, and calling people all day long, even on my day off. I just hope that all this work makes this mission trip amazing for the youth involved.