The Power of Three Little Words!

Well, it turned out to be a good day after all. We had a little trouble getting the tank here, and some not-too-bright, un-named sponsor tried to switch spots and set it up next to the seniors...before the school insurance agent pointed out that if a softball hit one of the plate glass windows behind us, we would lose all our profits...for the next twenty years. So I ordered it back to the original spot, blocking the alley--since a barbecue wagon had taken up our marked spot as well as theirs. Fortunately nobody needed to use that alley anyway. We had no dignitaries to sit for us...not even youth pastors...who stayed away in droves today. Nope. Mainly, we had little brothers of juniors. Only one of my juniors was brave enough to splash in herself. After she left, and the later shift began, the three girls who were manning the booth refused to sit there. One of them had a brother who volunteered...then his little friends volunteered. We actually made more money than I thought we would...of course I thought we wouldn't make any at all and would have to chalk this one up to experience. So how did I avoid being railroaded into sitting on the tank. My three little words:
Sure, after you!

Pumpkin Festival

Today's the Pumpkin Festival--A big thing for this little town. There will be food booths selling pumpkin rolls, pumpkin pies, pumpkin fritters and just pumpkins--maybe.

My Juniors have a dunk tank. This is supposed to be a fund raiser. um huh.
One little problem. It's nippy outside. Nobody has agreed to sit up on the chair and be our dunkee.

I'm wondering if we will even cover our fifty dollar investment to rent the spot. I guessing we will have to pay people to be dunked. There. There. Don't be so pessimistic, Lil.

Who's stupid idea was this anyway...oh wait. I think it was mine...back during those scorching summer days of long ago August.

I'm going up there. Pray for me. I have the distinct feeling that I'm going to get dunked...again and again. Glub Glub Glub.

It's Hard to Keep Up...

...with the pace of technology.

15 years ago I divided my CSIII class into groups and assigned each one a "journey of the Apostle Paul" to research and present to the class. Each team drew a map upon which they traced the route of their journey and drew eight pictures representing the events which happened. They taped their pictures to the wall and "presented" the journey as if they were one of the original missionary team, explaining what had happened at every stop.

10 years ago the project took a leap into computer land. This time the pictures were scanned into a computer and connected with a program called hypercard. Wow. We were amazed. True, we had to crowd around the computer to see it, but it was worth the trouble. Some of the cards even had a little bit of animation!

5 years ago all the cards were set as power point presentations, and pictures to illustrate them were downloaded from the internet. Since this didn't take as long, I added requirements: commercials for three major towns and testimonies for two characters, and a few sentences on each card explaining it. Many of the labels and pictures were animated. One map even had a set of arrows that followed the journey.

Last year the minimum was thirty cards. All the story had to be re-phrased (not copied from the ready made accounts of Paul's journeys already on the internet) Music and sound effects were added and attached. All the maps had animated arrows or footprints. We watched the shows on the big screen in the auditorium.

We are beginning this project next Monday. I'm guessing that when the students start searching the internet they will find the project already completed and free to download...so what do I add? Sigh. Technology. Maybe I should hand out blank sheets of paper, Bibles, and map colors.

There's a Kind Of Hush

Not as much loud posturing and demandings to be heard. Students are more polite and eyes ask questions before voices do. We've come through a tragedy, the hardest part anyway, but two of the students and a teacher are still in the hospital--wheelchairs, pins, screws, crutches, transfusions, more surgeries--and everybody is walking a little more carefully. Substitute teachers are covering the classes, and getting ready for a long stay there. The quietness is a heavy kind. Life goes on without any more jolts...just a few flutters...and a sorrow-drenched slowness. True, there are also some spots of normal, head-shaking smiles at these people around us who mean a little more than they did a week ago...before the tragedy shot our adrenaline up in an anguished fear.

One Day Follows Another

...as if each hour were holding hands with the next. A steady trickle and then a stream of lively sounds reverberate as the weekend pushes its way in. The college two are home, checking their facebook and their e-mail; a new Indonesian dorm student quietly finds her room and shower, as she survives this first exposure to what is going to be her "home-weekend" place for the month, my oldest daughter comes to visit, bringing her own two (or is it too) energetic offspring. Music explodes from the piano and the organ along with the boing boinging of a large blue, plastic ball. To add to all this confusion, each grandchild brings two imaginary friends and proceeds to tell me, and show me, how fast Stikrit can run or how crazily Goki can dance. Grandpa Turtle teases the little ones. Saturday evening comes, with a quiet singing service--praise to lift the weariest, and Sunday at church I live in joy--with such friends all sharing lavishly their stories and their sorrows of the week.

Ah yes. We have wild weekends. The kind of wild I like.

Then, just as soon, they all fly away; the noise is gone...and home is quiet and relaxing...
until Monday drags through the door and I go driving off myself to a world of bells and bright eyes. But that's my next story.


Here are Zaya and Mim--playing with the little cash register. You've been there, haven't you.