Busy busy busy

I'm sorry, it seems I haven't blogged in a while. Please forgive me, I have been busy!

For instance, there was the wedding at church a couple of weeks ago where I got to cover for the caretaker who was away, and spent 6 hours on my feet and had to miss church on the Sunday because I almost couldn't move!
Then there was the school assembly yesterday. I don't know what my American readers would call that, but it's where the school gets all the kids together in one room and does any awards etc, sometimes sings, sometimes does a little "talk etc". Some schools don't have rooms big enough to get everyone together and so they have assemblies on different days for different year groups and so on. Or they do house assemblies if the school has a house system. Some schools do a mixture of all of them over the week.

The school I went to does a mixture but yesterday was the whole school assembly. Well, except the nursery class and reception class, but that still meant I was standing in front of nearly 400 children, plus at least 20 adults I should think.

WHY?

Why would I do such a thing?

Weelllllllllll, it's the whole Christmas Shoebox thing isn't it. From Samaritans Purse, you should be able to find all my posts about Samaritans Purse among my Blogathon posts here.



Last year I became a registered volunteer for Samaritans purse and this year I did my first school assembly to tell children all about it. I was nervous. I mean, the most people I have ever stood up in front of and talked before is probably about 100, this was a serious step up!
But ti went really really well! The children listened, the children laughed, the children responded when I needed them to and on the whole quietened down when I needed them to. I communicated, I hope, something of the real heart of this campaign.

The teacher who was leading the assembly said I had done very well and he was sure that even the children right at the back were able to hear me. Heeheee, you can tell he doesn't know me, I have no problems making myself heard.

I've heard back from the member of staff who got me into the school and she says that some of the classes have watched the longer version of the video above already, since I left it with them yesterday and that one class at least needed a box of tissues because the tears were flowing.

Our nearest depot (where the boxes are sorted before going on a lorry) is about 2 hours away, but I am hoping to be able to make the drive over one day next week, to take the boxes from our church and the school. There is a van going over weekly, BUT I really want to go visit the depot and am looking for an excuse to do so. I figure if I can take some photos at the depot, I can send them into the school.

Wordless Wednesday

I believe one of these lovely ladies is my grandmother on my father's side, but he might have to fill me in!

There's a Wedding

There's a wedding at church today.
It's one I have been looking forward to because this couples situation is so similar to our own.

However it is going to be a very long day for me.

It's at our church. I work at our church, in the office, 10 hours a week. And when the caretaker is away I cover for him, as much as I can. Well, he's away this weekend, for the wedding. It's his granddaughters first birthday. So I get to cover for him.

The wedding doesn't start until 1pm.
I have to be down at church at 10am. Put the heating on, set some things up and then sit and wait for people to arrive.
Then, when the wedding is finished I have to hang around, get all the stragglers who came to the service but are not going to the reception, to help me tidy up so that we are ready for church in the morning, then get them all to GO HOME, so I can lock up.
I expect that I will still be there at 3pm!

Don't know how I'll get any exercise in today, although I might do some strength training later.

Friday Felicities

It's Friday, and time to thing about what makes me smile!
Today I smile because:

• I might be going to lunch with a friend,
• but if I don't I have a yummy quick oven to table chicken and pasta dish that I picked up this morning.
• A lovely young lady from our church is getting married tomorrow and I've been asked to help out.
• Daddy God loves me.
• I have a new wellness journey to travel on.
• And I'm having great fun thinking about gifts I could make for Christmas.
• The dappled sun is filtering through the curtains.
• It looks nice and sunny outside, even if it isn't warm.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful

• for God is in Control . . . NOT ME! for hosting Thankful Thursday while it's original host is taking a break.
• for the extra hours I am putting in at work this week and next week. It's hard work but come the end of the year I will get the pay for any extra hours that are owed to me. I intend to put all of that towards the Trip to America Fund (more on that later).
• For my new computer desk that means I can shut the doors on this thing and not even see it!
• For the room finally being back to somewhat of a normal state, so that I have my space at the table to sit and read and journal again.
• For the realization I had at the weekend, of the extent of the Fathers Love for me. I cannot easily put this into words, but I KNOW now that He loves me, I have EXPERIENCED it in a new way, God is my DADDY! He would swim oceans, fight bears and give his only son FOR ME! Not just for all of us, not just for the "other" Christians (lets face it the enemy tries to tell all of us that at one time or another right?) but FOR ME! He died, FOR ME! Because Daddy loves me THAT MUCH! I'm not doing a good job of communicating how much of a difference this makes. I'm not saying that I didn't know His love before, I did, but it was head knowledge and now it's heart knowledge.
• for the fantastic book by Mark Stibbe that really helped me understand this - "The Father You've Been Waiting For."
• For the fantastic prophetic training conference that I was at over the weekend, it was awesome! Learned a lot and got to put it into practice now.
• for a later start at work today, it is giving me a chance to catch up on some post writing and blog reading!
• For the wedding at church this Saturday
• for my husband, who works so hard to provide for us, who is an amazing husband and a loving father. I am blessed and privileged to be married to him.
• For health
• for a roof over my head (that doesn't leak any more HALLELUJAH!)
• for the decorating that the insurance company is paying for that SHOULD hopefully be done before Christmas.
  

Yep, I have plenty of reasons to be thankful!

Thursday 13

13 ways to get a teenager out of bed! (grrrhhhh!)

1. Call from your room into his room "It's time to get up" in a light, almost sing song tone of voice.
2. 5 minutes later call "It's time to get up" in a much flatter tone of voice and louder this time.
3. 10 minutes after that bang on his door and tell him he "needs to get up".
4. Decide that since he has no lectures until 12 and is working late at his part time job after college tonight to let him lie in a little while.
5. 2 hours later decide that no, he needs to get up now and call from the bottom of the stairs "It really is time to get up now."
6. Wait a short while then call upstairs and tell him he's had a long enough lie in already.
7. Use the phone extensions to call the upstairs phone from the downstairs one. The upstairs phone is out on the landing, so he will at least have to get out of his bed and out of his room to deal with it.
8. Go into his room and open the curtains.
   
9. Tell him you haven't got all morning, that you need to go to work soon and he needs to get up.
10. Find the whistle you use to control the rowdier games at Sunday's Cool and stand at the bottom of the stairs and blow a lovely tune on it!
11. Go into his room and open the window, it's November now and that means cold!
    
12. Give him one last warning and then . . . . .
    
13. Resort to the cup of water thrown over the sleeping person! Yes it's going to make the bed wet, but he can deal with that, he's had plenty of opportunity to get himself up.

I'll leave it up to you to guess how far we got with this list today.