Well, my short stint at camp this summer has already come to an end. Instead of 6 weeks at Penn York Camp like the last 5 summers, this year I had parts of 3 days (less than 48 hours) of camp. I was sad to leave, but this is not my summer for camp experience.
I got there Sunday evening in time for the staff dessert potluck. I knew a few people there on staff, but I didn't know any of them every well. Campers didn't come until Monday morning, so we had the evening to play around in the Activity Center. I had a chance to play ping pong and pool (say that 5 times fast!) for the first time in a while. A lot of the evening though, I was working on stuff to say to these 1st and 2nd graders that would be arriving shortly.
See, I was the camp pastor for these 2 days of camp. PYC doesn't have that role, so I wasn't real familiar with how it would work. I certainly didn't know how to prepare for 3 20-25 minutes chunks of speaking for Monday and Tuesday. The summer theme at Crooked Creek is "Lost in the Wilderness" so I had the story of the Exodus to work with. Fortunately, that gives a very large selection of exciting stories to pull from! And for 1st and 2nd graders that's all I could ever ask for!
Monday morning I told them that God always keeps his promises. I told them about the 3 promises God made to Abraham and how the first one was kept. It took a while to make Abraham's family into a nation, but after many generations and being freed from Egypt they were finally an independent people. I also shared with them my experience getting lost on Mt. Sinai.
Monday evening we looked at God's faithfulness and the 2nd promise he made to Abraham. God protected and provided for the Israelites at the Red Sea and in the desert with water and food. Yet, even with all the things God did for them, they still complained every single time. So I had to tell the story of Daniel too--a faithful follower who God also protected.
Tuesday morning the Isrealites were finally found and made it to the Promised land--God's 3rd promise to Abraham. It wasn't easy though and they needed a brave and courageous leader like Joshua to do it. All the adult Israelites were scared, so only the kids and Joshua and Caleb could make it all the way across the Jordan. They showed their courage and faith then finally at the walls of Jericho.
I had tons of fun telling all the stories to 73 little pairs of eyes! Kids that age are eager for more stories and can easily get lost in them. They are also quick to answer any questions I would ask even if they didn't know the answer. Mostly though, they knew the answers. The last day a few kids asked me if all those stories were true or if I had read the whole Bible or they just said they liked the stories. That makes all the preparation and loss of sleep totally worthwhile!
When I wasn't preparing or telling stories I enjoyed exploring the camp or just hanging out with kids. Some cabins only had one staff, so I joined them for various meals. I showed 4 foot tall kids that height really does make a difference on the bouldering wall. I was captured by a very organized blob in blob tag. And my win-loss record was barely over 50% at carpetball against kids who love to play. It was so much fun! But after the family picnic Tuesday my time was up.
Today I was back at church working on several things. Mostly it was a Bible study for the MYF crew tonight. Tomorrow I'll be heading to Freeman, SD until Sunday for the annual meeting of the Central Plains Conference. Since my last blog post, we finished up our three days of Bible School and I had a busy Sunday. I was the worship leader, sang with the worship band, sang in the special EMU affiliated church choir, had the privilege to introduce Loren Swartzendruber, and went to an MYF parents meeting.
So, all is going well for me here! Oh, and Duk starts most of the time, but not all of the time (I used it as an example of something that was not faithful).
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
One day of Bible School is done. Two more to go. Compared to working at camp, days like today are relatively simple. 8:30 to 12:45 with six 3rd through 5th graders for three days pales in comparison to 7 or 8 boys from various ages for parts of 6 days and 5 nights. At Penn York Camp, the counselor led all the activities and was responsible for the kids at all times. At Bible School I may be responsible for the kids the whole time, but I only lead them alone for about an hour a day. At camp I was very pleased if I got a full hour off every day, while here we are given about 45 minutes for breaks that don't even feel deserved. I'd rather play with the kids during break times anyway.
These three days we are learning about the Holy Spirit using the "Catch the Spirit" VBS guide. The guide is for 5 days, but for many various reasons we are scrunching it into 3 days. That gives an overabundance of material to fit into the limited class times. And with a group as talkative as mine it's quite a challenge to get to the next task. We have several activity centers each day to focus on some action of the church, like praying, playing, and gathering today. And we'll be going through quite a bit of the book of Acts as we learn. It was Acts 1:1-2:12 and 2:37-47 today. I'm looking forward to tomorrow!
Since I last posted, I have spent most of my time at the church in my simple little office. I've been reading and writing and planing and preparing for several things. Getting ready for Bible School was a large part of it. And we're well underway on final preparations for the Columbus convention at the end of the month. For me that involves mainly leading Bible studies with the MYF. The first was last Sunday and there will be two more before we head off for convention.
The biggest event for me this past week was a trip to Minneapolis for a meeting on Monday. Dave and I left Sunday evening and spent the night in a Holiday Inn, then we finished the trip Monday morning. The purpose for the meeting was to address a proposal for establishing a second Hmong church in the Minneapolis area. The Hmong leader started the first one 4 or 5 years ago and feels like it is time to start a second one. Various leaders from the Central Plains Conference met with him to see how this could work.
In the morning, just the Central Plains representatives talked to see how the proposal looked to them. Everyone agreed that starting this church was an important cause, but saw the timescale and financial plan as impossibilities. When the Hmong leaders came at lunch time, we ate and socialized and then got back to business. Dealing with the different cultures provided some challenges, but everyone seemed to understand the powers at play and negotiations happened easily enough. The timeline was pushed back one year and various funding streams were named. I won't be around as these people continue to meet, but it looks like there will be a second Hmong Mennonite church in Minneapolis by summer of 2011.
In out of church news, I am no longer living alone! That's pretty fantastic! I could not ask for better hosts than Wilbur and Helen. And it feels much better to return home to people after a day of work rather than looking forward to an evening alone. We will continue to get to know each other and figure out routines, but I'm confident everything will work very well.
That's enough for now. As always, I enjoy hearing from whoever is reading this!
These three days we are learning about the Holy Spirit using the "Catch the Spirit" VBS guide. The guide is for 5 days, but for many various reasons we are scrunching it into 3 days. That gives an overabundance of material to fit into the limited class times. And with a group as talkative as mine it's quite a challenge to get to the next task. We have several activity centers each day to focus on some action of the church, like praying, playing, and gathering today. And we'll be going through quite a bit of the book of Acts as we learn. It was Acts 1:1-2:12 and 2:37-47 today. I'm looking forward to tomorrow!
Since I last posted, I have spent most of my time at the church in my simple little office. I've been reading and writing and planing and preparing for several things. Getting ready for Bible School was a large part of it. And we're well underway on final preparations for the Columbus convention at the end of the month. For me that involves mainly leading Bible studies with the MYF. The first was last Sunday and there will be two more before we head off for convention.
The biggest event for me this past week was a trip to Minneapolis for a meeting on Monday. Dave and I left Sunday evening and spent the night in a Holiday Inn, then we finished the trip Monday morning. The purpose for the meeting was to address a proposal for establishing a second Hmong church in the Minneapolis area. The Hmong leader started the first one 4 or 5 years ago and feels like it is time to start a second one. Various leaders from the Central Plains Conference met with him to see how this could work.
In the morning, just the Central Plains representatives talked to see how the proposal looked to them. Everyone agreed that starting this church was an important cause, but saw the timescale and financial plan as impossibilities. When the Hmong leaders came at lunch time, we ate and socialized and then got back to business. Dealing with the different cultures provided some challenges, but everyone seemed to understand the powers at play and negotiations happened easily enough. The timeline was pushed back one year and various funding streams were named. I won't be around as these people continue to meet, but it looks like there will be a second Hmong Mennonite church in Minneapolis by summer of 2011.
In out of church news, I am no longer living alone! That's pretty fantastic! I could not ask for better hosts than Wilbur and Helen. And it feels much better to return home to people after a day of work rather than looking forward to an evening alone. We will continue to get to know each other and figure out routines, but I'm confident everything will work very well.
That's enough for now. As always, I enjoy hearing from whoever is reading this!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Marriage Counseling
So, today I spent about five and a half hours receiving training to use the Prepare Enrich resource for marriage counseling. Dave has been a trainer for this program for quite some time and was asked to do it once again for some local pastors. He figured it would be beneficial to me too and invited me to join. So I sat with 4 other pastors from various denominations, though mainly Mennonite, and completed the training. (I even have a certificate to prove it!)
I felt out of place there with the others who are all paid pastors who do counseling and are substantially older than me, and are all married. But I enjoyed it! I find this kind of thing fascinating and it’s something that I look forward to doing as a pastor some day. The program I learned is centered around a pre-assessment that the couple takes online separately before starting premarital or marital counseling. From there, the counselor has a firm foundation of facts and patterns and graphs to show the couple and work with. There are a total of 25 activities that follow, but six main ones.
Normally I’m pretty suspicious of putting all that much faith in these online assessments, but this one seems better. I’m sure Prepare Enrich would hope I’d say that after taking the program! Though very thorough, it stresses the assessment as a starting point for conversation and a potential indicator of future problems and not a comprehensive analysis of the relationship. It makes the couple think through many areas of the relationship that might be ignored and teaches them to deal with conflict. Overall, it makes each person more aware of the needs and complexity of the other person. Interesting.
This past week a bunch of things happened. Duk didn’t start and I’ve been sick for a few days. I keep doing visiting and reading and writing for the church during the day. I’ve been invited to a few more meals with other members of the church and had some great conversations that way. On Friday I was able to check out the Iowa Mennonite Relief Sale. I sat in with the youth group’s (MYF’s) Sunday school class and went to an MYF event Sunday evening. There I was able to play Rook for several hours. Other than that I haven’t played a single card game out here in Iowa! Last night, I went to the Iowa Mennonite School Substate Finals soccer game in Iowa City. They lost to Regina and it wasn’t a real pretty game, but I was glad to be able to attend.
I guess that’s about all for now!
I felt out of place there with the others who are all paid pastors who do counseling and are substantially older than me, and are all married. But I enjoyed it! I find this kind of thing fascinating and it’s something that I look forward to doing as a pastor some day. The program I learned is centered around a pre-assessment that the couple takes online separately before starting premarital or marital counseling. From there, the counselor has a firm foundation of facts and patterns and graphs to show the couple and work with. There are a total of 25 activities that follow, but six main ones.
Normally I’m pretty suspicious of putting all that much faith in these online assessments, but this one seems better. I’m sure Prepare Enrich would hope I’d say that after taking the program! Though very thorough, it stresses the assessment as a starting point for conversation and a potential indicator of future problems and not a comprehensive analysis of the relationship. It makes the couple think through many areas of the relationship that might be ignored and teaches them to deal with conflict. Overall, it makes each person more aware of the needs and complexity of the other person. Interesting.
This past week a bunch of things happened. Duk didn’t start and I’ve been sick for a few days. I keep doing visiting and reading and writing for the church during the day. I’ve been invited to a few more meals with other members of the church and had some great conversations that way. On Friday I was able to check out the Iowa Mennonite Relief Sale. I sat in with the youth group’s (MYF’s) Sunday school class and went to an MYF event Sunday evening. There I was able to play Rook for several hours. Other than that I haven’t played a single card game out here in Iowa! Last night, I went to the Iowa Mennonite School Substate Finals soccer game in Iowa City. They lost to Regina and it wasn’t a real pretty game, but I was glad to be able to attend.
I guess that’s about all for now!