The Best Trash of All

A small group of us planned the women's retreat at our church. The day was rich with teaching of God's Word by a BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) teacher. The theme was God is My Treasure.

Now to the fun...S and I planned the games. Naaah, S planned the games, I just helped. S works in marketing, so she is into this stuff. She outlined the team building games, all around a treasure theme. Can you guess what we are doing here?
Our most favorite game was the Trash to Treasure game. We gave each of four teams a pile of trash and they were to create something. Here, we were sorting trash in the minutes before the start of the retreat. One of the ladies came up and asked us what we were doing. I couldn't tell her just yet, but insisted she take our picture, anyway.

I had gobs of benign trash stashed away in a trash bag in this very laundry hamper for our game. A few days before the retreat I noticed that the hamper was empty. OH NO. I asked Hubby if he had seen my stashed trash. "Yeah, it was trash, right? I threw it away..." Well, yes it was trash, but it wasn't that kind of trash!! I sent an S.O.S. email asking a handful of ladies for bigger and better and volumes of trash. I laughed when I received an email asking from one lady that if she donated something, could she get it back. We received binoculars, a foot stool, a broken fishing reel, a child's old art project, dusty floral arrangements, old toys, telephones, oh the list could go on and on. We had so much trash! S looked at the stuff that came just from my car. "What are you talking about? You have plenty of trash!" Hmmm made me think about how much more I can still clean out my house. Totally different from her. This is the woman who thinks her dream job would be a professional organizer. She had maybe 1/50 of the stuff I brought. Then again I have kids. They produce more stuff. Oh I have stuff these days like I never had before!

I appointed S the spur of the moment judge. That's because OH YES my Competitive Spirit was participating. We were on a budget, so the grand prize was to be the first group in the line for lunch, which was absolutely fab, (you know, because J. put it together).

My camera battery was low, so the pictures are a little fuzzy, and some pictures were so bad I didn't include them.

This is Queen Esther and her cardboard scepter wearing 2 year old Kathleen's shoes, I think.

See the kandoo box? That is the throne in the story of Esther.

Hmmm I remember this one had a Garden of Eden theme and a trinity theme, with lots of craft things in threes. They represented things we tend to make our earthly treasures.

Now this is my group. And yes, the Competitive Spirit suggested we make a person. You know, the Competitive Spirit has this thing about original ideas. This is our Fisher of Men. We scored binoculars and the broken fishing reel. Two old cordless phones made his arms, an old cell phone ear piece made his ip*d in his ears. Curling ribbon made his fishing line, and we had blue river rock beads that made water. We made a play doh fish outlined by a silver pipe cleaner. Out of his head came a child's art project, and also the dusty floral arrangement. He is sitting next to Kristen...I want to live somewhere next to her in heaven when she sings! Our Fisher of Men is wearing her dad's broken sandals he left in Hawaii. You must know judge S was also in our group.

Well it came time to judge whose trash was best. Remember, I bowed out of the judging. S gave a little award to each group, however, the Fisher of Men lost to Queen Esther. Now, my Competitive Spirit was ok with this, since I knew we couldn't really win an award with S, K, and me at the same table. I knew that ours was just the most smashing trash creation, anyway! But you know my Competitive Spirit felt a little vindicated when S sent me an email this week that said, well, I really shouldn't tell you, but you can guess!!!

Lesson From My Three Year Old in Church

Son1 started attending church nursery at 5 months. I was relieved that he was well cared for and we could attend the service without baby noise. Our church in VA had a great nursery with plenty of volunteers and staff. Then we moved to Hawaii where he continued attending nursery. Our current church has a 0 to 3 nursery during the service, and a preschool Sunday School class the other hour. Up until recently, he attended both.

Hubby and I started transitioning Son1 to the adult service about 1 month ago. We expected Son1 to stay with us through worship time, participate in the children's sermon, and then return to the 0 to 3 nursery during the big people sermon. We felt encouraged that he might be ready for the 4 to 6 class during service, even though he won't turn 4 until August. Last week Hubby tried the 4 to 6 class with Son1. He just didn't feel Son1 was ready for the class, but knew the 0 to 3 nursery wasn't the right place for him anymore, either. Since we are in between stages, we decided to keep Son1 in the service with us. He loves to watch all of the instruments, see his Sunday School teacher sing, watch the power point slides, and point to people he knows. He understands that his money he places in the offering plate goes to Jesus. But his favorite part is the children's sermon. It's Hubby's favorite part of the service, too.

Our church in Hawaii is great and allows each individual family to decide where their kids should be during service. Childcare is available, or you can choose to keep your children in service. The church provides gallon sized ziplock bags full of crayons, markers, stencils, and note pads for each child that chooses to stay in the service. Now, I never thought I would be one of those moms that keeps all my children in the service with me, but it works for now. Son2 will be 1 this Friday, and I have never left him in the nursery. He has had several sinus and ear infections, and I don't see the need to expose him to other children when he is recovering from being ill, or possibly contagious. The weeks he is well, I don't place him in the nursery, fearing he may catch something from another child. In Hawaii many families keep their children with them in the church service their first year of life, anyway.

I was somewhat worried that I was teaching Son1 that we just draw in church. Then, just before the sermon the pastor asked that we turn in our Bibles to the book of Matthew for the scripture reading. I am lazy and just read it where it is printed on the back of my church bulletin. Son1 was busy tracing the lines on a tic tac toe grid. He didn't even look up, but a few seconds later, he said, "You open your Bible, Mommy!!" I stared down at him, still intently using his marker. Here we were, sitting in the back third of the church service, and he was absorbing far more than I expected. I am not too worried that he thinks we just draw in church anymore!