It’s always nice to survive to the first holiday of the school year. It doesn’t seem like we should be cruising into fall so soon. But then this summer has me all messed up. I just noticed cicadas singing the other day. We usually hear them all through August. I guess it hasn’t been hot enough for them to come out.
AWANA UPDATE. Now that our AWANA Club is under way I wanted to give an update. We had our first club meeting Wednesday before last (September 2) with over 50 kids there! What’s more important than the numbers, though, is the excitement! I have not seen kids this excited about what’s going on at church as they are with this, and we’ve always done some pretty fun things for kids at church. One thing that makes this so evident are the comments kids are making. One little girl came up to Vicki last Sunday and proudly recited the Bible verses to “Mrs. Vicki” that she already had memorized for Wednesday night. Someone else ran up on two boys drilling each other on their memory verses while waiting in the lunch line at school. And at our house Nate was really enjoying the Bible stories Vicki was reviewing with him when he asked if these stories were in the Bible he got from his Sunday school teacher. He was really impressed when he found out they were there.
This is even spilling over to the adults. One friend of mine, Buzz Graves, volunteered to help with AWANA. This past Wednesday I walked by Buzz and he had the biggest smile on his face. When I asked him about it he explained that he never expected to see the kids retain what they had studied from the previous week and be so eager to tackle the new material. We’ve also had another fellow become a Christian for the first time. He was baptized today. I know God has been working in his life, still I can’t help but think that his involvement with helping in AWANA, young as our club here is, had something to do with that decision.
God is definitely working in a lot of ways at our church.
RELAPSE. On the other end of the spectrum here I must report that Pauline’s lymphoma has returned. She went for a scheduled checkup a couple of weeks ago and they found a spot about three inches across in her right lung. She began chemo Tuesday. I think this round of treatment will be over by Thanksgiving. So far she’s still feeling pretty well.
RA MEN/BOYS CAMPOUT. Friday after school/work the boys and I headed to Coldstream Camp in Adams for the annual RA campout. It was a one night event.
Nate was too young to go last year so he was really excited. We found a brochure on the campground I had picked up last year and he just poured over all the pictures in it, and I think the camp lived up to his expectations. The beauty of this event, since it’s only one night, is there isn’t much organized activity. It simply provides a time for men and boys to be together and meet new friends from across Robertson County. Everyone can pretty much run free and do what they want. The boys and I enjoyed trying to fish at the lake. Ben rode the zip line once. Nate and I walked part of the nature trail. There was football, corn hole, washers, an obstacle course, s’mores--just anything a kid would want to do. Jeff Garst even brought the stuff for making ice cream in zip top bags.
We got home about lunch time yesterday. I made the boys shower. When they were done I went to see what they wanted for lunch and both were fast asleep in the living room. It doesn’t get better than that!
COMPLIMENT. Nate and I were sitting together in church today (the rest of the family were a bit under the weather) when, in the middle of Bro. Bill’s sermon, he looked up at me and asked, “Daddy, did you shave today?” When I told him I had shaved he smiled real big and said, “You look good!” We’ll be taking him to the eye doctor as soon as possible.
Joe
