Prayer Update: 100% Sent on Campus

What do you think of when you hear about a student being sent by Christ?  A mission trip?  Life as a missionary post-graduation?  These are the typical thoughts that have come to mind for me over the years.  However, what if we all view ourselves as sent by God to the places we currently live, work, and play everyday?  This is the perspective we are working to create on our campuses nationwide, this is 100% Sent.  Take a look at our latest prayer letter here to read about how one campus is helping students see themselves as missionaries who have been sent by the Lord to transform their university.  Thanks so much for your prayers!

Christmas and Cornflakes

I had the big idea on December 9th, I think, to do an advent/tree/calendar.  In all honesty, it wasn't my idea.  I got it from friends/blogs, etc., and I got a bit of a late start.  I really had to stop myself halfway through this Christmas season to think . . . Why am I doing all of this?  Overwhelmed was an understatement between organizing class parties, buying gifts, attending Christmas parties, baking, and just general holiday madness.  One night we happened to be reading Little Guy's Bible (Jesus Storybook Bible) and the section we're on (we read a couple of pages a night) just happens to be the Christmas story - pretty neat! 

So, anyway, I was reading to them about how God would choose to show up as a baby and be born in the worst of conditions, with straw to sleep on, surrounded by smelly animals.  I was thinking about how painstakingly we picked out Little Guy's crib when we knew we were going to have a baby.  We wanted it to be beautiful and strong and the mattress to be soft and comfy.  Jesus had none of that, and He deserved it.  How little do Christmas parties and baking and organizing matter in light of God coming to Earth as a baby?

After that I wanted to focus on what matters, which is where the advent calendar comes back in.  Each day had a bit of the Christmas story and an activity for our family to do together.  I decided not to buy an advent calendar but to make something (so not me!).  So, I made snowflakes and glued the paper on the back and arranged it into a tree.  Here is the progression . . .

front of the snowflakes:

all the snowflakes:

our advent tree:

Just to assure you how non-crafty I am . . . When Little Guy first saw it, the first thing he said was, "Those don't look like snowflakes!  Snowflakes aren't black!"  Come on, Little Guy, use your imagination!!  It's been fun, and the activities have been everything from

coloring Christmas pages
driving around to look at Christmas lights
going to the zoo
making Christmas cards
making a gingerbread house, etc.

The first thing they want to do in the morning is to go down and see what the day's activity is.  Although, lesson learned for next year - they are wiped out from some of the things.  Since Little Guy's not in school this week, we've packed in the activities.  They crashed!  Oh, well, that's how memories are made, right?  Each night before bed, we read the bit of the Christmas story on the paper.

Sweet girl has snowflakes on her mind though.  I never buy Cornflakes, but I had them for a recipe, so the kids have been eating them for breakfast.  The other day, when Little Guy ran out, Sweet Girl said, "You want more snowflakes?"  I still can't get her to call them Cornflakes.

I will post more pictures of some of our activities soon!

Geese and Angels

Campus Crusade held it's annual Light Up event tonight.  To be honest, I usually dread this event.  It's dark so it's harder to keep up with everyone, the lines for food are SUPER long, and the food is supposed to represent different countries . . . so, not kid friendly.  This year, though, we came prepared.  We went to McDonald's beforehand, so kids were eating Happy Meals, while mommy and daddy were able to fight through the food lines.  Although, no fighting was necessary because we got there 10 minutes early and there were no lines!  So, Blair and I munched on tacos and empanadas, while the kids munched on cheeseburgers and fries (I did throw in some apples, too, so as not to be completely unhealthy.)

Here the kids are before the party during some forced holiday fun in front of the tree.  You can imagine me spurting out any lines I could think of from Disney movies to try to make them smile and look natural. 

As you can see it didn't really work . . .

The night was fun.  There were lots of kid activities, and even a petting zoo.  If you know our Sweet Girl, you know she loves animals.  Goats, geese, bunnies, and ducks were there.  I don't know if you know anything about adult geese or not, but they are MEAN.  We are not fans of geese in this family after tonight.  Our dear little Sweet Girl loves the animals so much and stood by the fence to see them.  Well, along comes a goose out of nowhere and takes a snap at her finger!!  She was very scared.  I could hear the gasps around the circle of the fence when it happened.  It's like he came up just to snap at her - mean thing!  Thankfully, she wasn't too scarred and still ventured to touch a bunny and a donkey's rear end.

The best part of the night actually happened on the 3 minute drive home.  We pulled onto our street and I commented for the 800th time how much I love our outside Christmas lights.  Blair did a great job on them!  You can see our Christmas tree through the front 2 windows and it looks like a scene from a very happy Christmas movie to me.  I look at it, and I think I'm glad I get to live in there with these people.  This picture doesn't really do it justice, but here it is nonetheless . . .

Yeah, it looks pretty lame in the picture, but I promise in person, it's really pretty.  So, Little Guy, says to us, "But, you can't see my angel."  We ask what angel, and he says, "I moved my angel around the back, so people could see it from the window and know that Christmas is about baby Jesus."  I was shocked silent for a minute.  I was hit on 2 levels.  1 is that he is thinking on his own that Christmas is about Jesus, and 2 that he wants other people to know that.  It was an amazing moment.

Here is the picture of the ornament.  He just colored it in church last Sunday.

Rec-Tangled

Isn't it true of parenthood that you get such sweet moments sandwiched in between scream-inducing ones?  Thank you, God, for the sweet ones that help us to endure the others!

My sandwich began this Tuesday with a scream-inducing moment.  I do a swap with a good friend who also lives in our neighborhood.  One week I take her son for a couple of hours and the next week she takes Sweet Girl.  This was my week to take her son.  We'll called him "C".  As soon as he gets here, C and Sweet Girl immediately say "pay-gound, pay-gound!" Which means, of course, that they want to go to our neighborhood playground. 

So, we get there and they're having a ball, when disaster strikes.  C and Sweet Girl like to play this game where they run around in the grass and fall down on top of each other - pretty harmless, right?  Well, I look up and C's arm is black.  It's covered in fire ants!!!!!!!!!!  I run over to him, yank his shirt off and furiously scrub his arm.  Meanwhile, he's upset, but he's barely crying.  As you have to be as a mother, I'm "taking care of business" on the outside, but inside I'm freaking out!!  Blair is allergic to fire ants and 40 bites would do some serious damage to him, so I'm terrified if that's true of C.  I got him all cleaned up and took him home. 

He was fine the whole time - brave kiddo!  My friend was very kind about it and said it could have happened to anyone.  I'm not a negligent mother - I promise!  I HATE fire ants.  They can strike when you least suspect it.  If you've ever seen Steel Magnolias, one of my favorite lines describes how I feel about them "They are a boil on the butt of humanity!!"  So, thankfully, C is okay.  His mom is still speaking to me, and all is well!  Here is a picture of the battle scars . . .

So, my sweet moment sandwiched in between disasters was this.  I'm trying to teach Sweet Girl her shapes and she continues to called a "rectangle" - "rec-tangled"  Because, yes, she has seen the movie Tangled many, many times.  I'm hoping she'll grow out of it by Kindergarten!  You can see for yourself . . .

The second piece of bread on my sandwich happened this morning.  It wasn't scream-inducing as much as it was I-want-to-run-out-of-this-store-and-never-show-my-face-again type of situation.  I'm shopping with a friend perusing the clearance racks at Ann Taylor Loft.  Sweet Girl is being the best that I've ever seen her in a shopping situation.  She is not much of a sit still and shop kind of gal.  So, I'm thrilled and thinking maybe we're turning a corner. 

My clothes to be tried on are hanging on the back of the stroller.  Sweet Girl is happily sticking Tangled (yes, there it is again!) stickers all over the stroller.  Thank you, dollar spot at Target.  There are definitely a few safe minutes to try these things on.  I roll the stroller into the dressing room and commence with the trying on. I try on a pair of jeans and a shirt.  The jeans are great, but I need a second opinion on the shirt, so I step out (thinking Sweet Girl is still okay) to have my friend give me her opinion.  All of a sudden I hear a very loud THUMP.  I rush back over and the first sight that greets my eyes is 2 shirts and a pair of jeans drenched in Diet Pepsi laying on the floor.  The stroller is turned over and sweet girl looks to be belly flopped on it.  I'm guessing she stood up in the stroller, leaned back, and it tipped over.  She did hit her head, but wasn't hurt - thankfully!

So, after making sure she's okay, my biggest concern now is the Diet Pepsi stained clothes.  The sales people were great and helpful, but of course, I felt like I had to buy those things.  I couldn't put them back!  So, I spent way more at the Loft today than I was planning on . . .

There's my sweet moment sandwich with one slice of scream-inducing and one slice of run and hide embarrassing.  My friend and I said one day we'll look back and say remember when . . .

Prayer Update: The Network

Jesus commissioned His followers to do what He did, make disciples.  Part of disciplemaking is helping train and equip the younger generation of Christ-followers to take the gospel to those around them.  This month, hear about how one campus leader has taken steps to mobilize his graduates to do just this in Detroit.  Read about it here.  Thanks so much for your prayers!

Come Home, Daddy!!

So, I was flying solo this past week.  Blair was up in Virginia meeting with people about financially supporting our ministry.  Half of me dreaded him leaving and half of me saw it as a challenge (which is really not like me at all!)  I usually choose the easy and comfortable life, to a fault!  To sum the week up in a couple of words: up and down.  Here are a few moments that stood out . . .

My sweet friend, Christy,  graced me with her presence (because I'm a big chicken when it comes to staying by myself) for 2 nights since she was in town.  Well, her birthday is at the end of the month, so Little Guy helped me decorate a cake that we made for her.  He was so proud, but it looks like a cross between an advertisement for Universal's Halloween Horror Nights and Betty Crocker run amuck.  See for yourself.



I felt very blessed to be living in community here.  We don't have family close by, but we have wonderful friends that feel like family.  Several friends watched the kids for me so I could do a few things or invited us over for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook.  So, Day 4 Dana invited us over for dinner.  Her husband had a class that night, so it worked out well.  Well, by Day 4, the kids were tired, missing their Daddy, and who knows what else.  As we were leaving, Little Guy decided he would show his friend how fast he could run (boys will be boys) and he fell and skinned his knee.  I kid you not -- people were coming out of their houses because he was screaming so loud.  He cried all the way home until he went to bed.  You are probably thinking "poor thing" which I can totally understand, but I have to confess my sympathy was pretty low.

I came home and did some thinking.  I don't usually think of myself as a controlling person, but the control monster came out in me this week!  I was trying to control the kids' behavior, how they interacted with each other, and the kicker was . . . my level of comfort.  I realized I wanted them to be obedient little robots who acted perfectly and let me have rest.  I'm sure no one else has ever felt that way!  But, I did.  The next day my goal was to loosen up on them a little bit and take all that effort to control and try to turn it into enjoyment of my kids.  The next few days were . . . well, I won't say easy, but definitely better!

I kept them busy over the weekend!  On Friday, we treated ourselves to pretzels at the mall.  Here's a video we made for Daddy while we were there.  Little Guy just could not get over the penny he found.  It's the little things in life for kids . . . 

We did a Fall Festival that night.  Let me tell you keeping up with kids by myself amidst hundreds of other people at an event like that is not a pleasure I'm likely to soon repeat!  The kids had fun though.  With the chaos, I only got 1 picture.  Oh, and you can tell I'm a big fan of this bow!

Thankfully, Sweet Girl saved up her double ear infections and hand, foot, and mouth disease until Daddy came home this week.  Trust me those 2 things (understandably so) does not a happy girl make!

Prayer Update: Following God's Call

The only appropriate response to the indescribable love and forgiveness that Jesus gives is a life of gratitude expressed through obedience and worship.  This month, take a moment to read about a Cru grad who has obediently followed God's call in his life.  We'll also give you a little more of an update on our life as parents and Sarah's ministry with women at church.  You can read our prayer update here.  Thank you so much for your prayers that make our ministry possible!