Mrs. Wendy's Lunch Bunch

Wendy Bailey works with our 5th graders at 11. I was so excited to hear that she has taken it upon herself to go and eat lunch with as many of her kids as possible. This past week she ate with 12 kids at T.I.S. What a great way to connect wiht these kids. Great job, Wendy!

I have had 3 parents in the past week tell me that their kids are ready to be baptized. We had a first grader and a fourth grader get baptized today! God is moving. Whenever you see one of our kids get baptized, I want you to remember that if you ever taught that child (even for just one Sunday), shepherded that child, listened to that child say a memory verse, even greeted them or their family... God used YOU to get them to the point of salvation and baptism. In children's ministry it takes lots of little steps before a child is ready. You never know if you are one of those steps!

One last cute story... Wendy and Harper told me about one of their 5th graders who takes meticulous notes. When Harper asked who remembered what he taught last week, she referred to her notes. :) She was disappointed that she only had notes from Celebration that day!

I love these kids!

Fun in Journey

A couple of weeks ago I was in the Storytelling workshop with Gentleness. Kim Gilmer did a great job talking to the kids about fighting temptation, what temptation looks like, what their major temptations now are, etc. After some games, one of the boys said, "This has been the best day at church EVER!" How cool is that?!

Excitement

A few Sundays ago, I was at the Children's Welcome Desk and overheard a visitor telling her parents how much fun she had in Journey. As I looked in her direction, I could see that her excitement was bubbling over and onto the smiling faces of the adults with her. It was a pleasure to witness this moment!

Yesterday in Celebration, a first grade boy was visiting for the first time. He lives in Ohio and his dad was interviewing for a job in our area. At first he was shy and said he didn't know what to do during the songs. I told him to watch Mrs. Cheri and to do what she was doing. At the end of the songs he said, "I hope we move here because I need to practice!"

A few fun comments

I met a mom of a third grader yesterday who confessed to me that they only come to Westwood when they are running late. Their church home is in Hueytown. She told me that her son always asks her why they can't just join Westwood because he loves what we do here in the Children's Ministry!

I also overheard some second grade girls chatting on their way to the restroom. One asked the other if she went to VBS last year. The other got excited and said, "Yeah, are you going this year?" What a great conversation to hear in January!

We had 192 kiddos in Celebration.

Also a big yay to all Younger Kids art teachers this month. They get the joy of painting t-shirts with the kids. It is hard, but the kids are loving it. Thank you for helping them have a memorable experience! By the way, one kid's shirt said "Roll Tide"... still trying to figure out how that fits in with the story of Joseph!

Keep up the great work!

Good to be back...

Yesterday was a great day. I really appreciate everyone's warm welcome and I especially appreciate our aweseome leadership team. I don't think our ministry missed a beat while I was gone and this is so cool.

My funny story for the day happened at 11. Frankie was teaching younger kids art and it is one of those really cool lessons that could just about kill you. The kids were making multi-colored t-shirts to go along with the story on Joseph. They were choosing words to put on their shirts. There were a ton of kids! I stepped in to lend a hand and started by helping first graders pick words and find the letters. One little boy informed me that he wanted his shirt to say "God". I diligently found a G and an O and a D and gave them to him . A few minutes later he came back with a disgusted look on his face and said, "I said I wanted 'God' not 'dog'!" Gotta love first graders.

We had 18 kids at First Steps last night! Awesome!