Day 2:

The lesson Today was on Elijah and the Great Contest between Baal and God. So for the snack the kids built altars out of zucchini bread (12 stones), pretzel sticks (fire wood), blue icing (water), and Orange slice chewy candies (fire). That's about the most creative thing I think I have ever come up with!

So day 2 is completed! Praise God, we had one more little boy from the neighborhood join us tonight. I'm slowly learning to trust God to provide. Tomorrow night begins the slow leaking away of helpers and kids, unless God provides otherwise.

We've really been enjoying the time with the kids. It's so much fun to play with them, hear them sing, hear them recite their memory verses, and get lots of hugs. I can't believe I missed my opportunity to get a picture of all the kids throwing water balloons at Jay. He was a great sport and the kids thought it was great.

-Anna

Day 1: Jacob and Celisse did an excellent job teaching the kids their memory verse, even though Celisse was getting sick! Hope you're better soon, Celisse!

Day 1:

We completed our first day of "God Always Wins" Bible Club. Not quite what we expected but really fun nonetheless. There were 16 people there, but most were helpers, and only 3 kids came from our neighborhood (friends of friends). On top of that, it looks like Jay may be sent to Port Townsend for work Wednesday through late Friday. Another 3 helpers will certainly be gone, and possibly a 4th, as well as some of the kids who attended. To sum up, it looks like I may have two kids and 1 helper. I found that I was not really trusting God with this. I had my idea of a good number of kids, and thought God would provide that many. Well, He didn't bring my number of kids. Here's my opportunity to not get embarrassed, self-conscious, doubting, and all the other things that can go along with a well publicized event that turns out quite different that one anticipated. GOD KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING! I feel like I need to pound that in to my head.

Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He WILL direct your path." I love that verse and will be reciting it continually this week.

Praises:
Play time was great. All the kids participated and smiled the whole time.
Story time went great. After teaching 0-5 yr olds in Sunday school, it was quite a pleasure to teach 4-9.
Activity time was a big hit. Relay race after relay race until we helpers were ready to drop!
In all, it was great! I laughed, played, got to know some kids and helpers better... and now I'm going to crash and do it all again tomorrow.

Please pray that God will open doors for us tomorrow (literally) so that we can remind families in our neighborhood about our BYBC. Pray that God will provide for the rest of our camp (both kids, helpers, good weather, as well as wisdom, etc.)

-Anna

Backyard Bible Club

In two weeks we are hosting our first ever Backyard Bible Club. Essentially it is a low-key VBS held in our backyard. It's been on my heart for a couple years, and now we have our own fenced in backyard (a bit small, but it'll do), so here we go! God has been so good in providing helpers and pray-ers for us.
That doesn't mean it's going to be a piece of cake! Each morning I've been studying the lessons I'm going to teach (from a curriculum set from Children Desiring God). The theme is "God Always Wins." It's been, and is going to be, a lesson in faith to teach those lessons. On top of the probability that kids will be noisy, distracted, and maybe uninterested, these lessons are undiluted truth about our Fearsome God. The kids will hear that God wins over kings and armies, that He wins over other gods/idols, that He wins over Sin, Death, and Satan, and that He will win in the Last Battle (as He takes His people home to heaven and sends those who are not His people to Hell with Satan). On that last day the kids will be challenged that they cannot "serve two masters," that they are either for God or against God. Throughout it all, God will be presented as good, faithful, supreme, but also holy, deserving of fear and honor, and omnipotent. My constant prayer is that God will let me speak words that are 100% true, perfect for the moment and the hearts of the kids, and clearly full of love.

As we prepare, we are putting our plans in God's hands. We do not know how many kids will come, who they will be, whether they will mingle well with each other (Hispanic and non), whether they have any desire to listen... Even as we've gone door to door we've needed His strength and grace to give us courage to keep going.

I am really excited to see what God does with our pitiful efforts. His strength is perfected in weakness (and we'll have plenty of that for Him to work with). Praise God that even now our selfishness is being hammered out of us, so that we can be pure in our faith. We don't naturally want to give up an evening to possibly have doors closed in our faces, or have a non-English speaker just smile and nod, or have dogs bark our ears off. We don't want to have a backyard filled with misbehaving children. We don't want to spend our hard earned money for some crazy gamble! Yet we feel God has called us to this and that, of course, it's no gamble when your doing the Lord's work. Isaiah 55:11 "My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."

Praises so far:
1. We're actually doing this! That's a work of God right there!
2. God has provided financially and physically for almost all the support we need.
3. We've met our neighbors finally, including one Christian family who is praying for our BYBC, and another who is going to bring snacks one day!
4. God has provided a very clear, easy to use, curriculum from Desiring God ministries.
5. Micah and Lydia have been able to participate in our first neighborhood ministry. Micah enjoys going door to door with us, and keeps telling me it's time to have our backyard Bible club, NOW!
6... many more to come, I'm sure.

We are counting on the prayers of our friends and family to carry us through the next week of prep and then our "God Always Wins" Backyard Bible Club.
P.S. if you know and Peshastinites who are between the ages of 4-10, please send them our way. I have flyers, and a sign up at the Library (amazingly enough, it passed the requirements despite "Bible" and "God Always Wins" emblazoned on the front.)