San Diego (Part 2)

 As AIM's West Coast Missions Conference wrapped up, I was left with a week to spend with my family and see some friends.  While I could bore you with a list of all those I saw, how bout some pictures instead?

Z playing the guitar with Uncle Samuel

Meeting Great Grandma Faith

Z and Aunt Joicers on her 6th birthday

He definitely got doted on by his cousins

All in all, it was a wonderful week.  One final thought: this visit I had the opportunity to connect with many different groups of friends.  I continue to be blessed by all the different people that God has brought into my life and it's amazing how each and every person ministers and challenges me in a different way.  So thank you to my California family (by blood and beyond). Until next time!

San Diego (Part 1)

These past two weeks I have spent in my home town of San Diego to help out with AIM's annual West Coast Missions Conference.  Well...the first week was to help with the conference and the second was to spend some time with my family. =) So much happened that I feel the need to separate this into two posts.

This year's conference was set-up a little differently as the AIM San Diego Team hosted it (normally headquarters hosts it).  What this meant was training the executive and assistant directors on everything it takes to put together a conference...it just happened to be a huge bonus that it was my mom and brother I was training. =)  I've spent a good portion of these last two months talking my mom and brother through the different steps of putting this conference together and even more, how to train those under them to run and put it together.

I then took on the adventure of traveling to San Diego with Z all by myself (which I've already written some about).  I was excited to touch down in San Diego and be mobbed by my nieces, nephew and siblings as I stepped off of the elevator.  I spent that night chilling with my family and mentally preparing for the next day.

Wednesday was filled with meeting with the SALT (Student ACTION Leadership Team) of AIM San Diego.  They each came individually or as a family group. I had back-to-back meetings from 9am - 6:30 pm.  Needless to say it was a full day.

Thursday was spent running through all of the last minute things and running errands for the conference.

...and then came the big day, Friday.  We again met with the SALT early to run through final details before the attendees arrived.  We had 69 students, parents and younger siblings attending the conference. This included the 26 AIM San Diego students, students from the San Diego area, and a team of people from Lompoc, Ca.

Something unusual happened for me this conference in that I actually got to sit in on several of the classes.  Normally, I am teaching during these times or doing other tasks to keep things on track.  This year however, with the SALT leading most of the classes and then parents teaching several as well, I only taught during one of the class periods.  Also, we had a parent completely in charge of the kitchen with a wonderful team of helpers so I did nothing in that area either...other than to sneak some samples here or there. =)

We wrapped up the conference with three different presentations.  One at a church, one at an American Legion family picnic and finally, one at Seaport Village.  It was neat to see how versatile the art of mime is as we went from ministering to a body of Christians, veterans, and then to anyone who happened to be at Seaport Village that day.

Overall, the conference was a huge success and a wonderful way to spend time with my family but more on that later...

Oh and what's a blog without a couple pictures of a bunch of mimes?

Group Picture at Seaport Village

Libs after a mime paint class 

thank you for blessing me

Two weeks ago, I took on the adventure of traveling to San Diego via plane with my 4 month old son...all by myself.  I really wasn't too nervous about the trip as he is an easy going baby but I think any parent always wonders if their child is going to be the one screaming for the whole two hour flight.  On top of that, I had several people tell me to just ignore any comments or glances from people about Z (meaning people aren't always that pleasant when they find out that they will be traveling with a child on the plane).  While I was quite pleased with how he did overall, I was even more blessed by the people God placed beside me.

On my first flight, I had a window seat.  I sat by myself for awhile and then a gentleman sat in the aisle seat.  I was pretty sure he wouldn't be bothered by Z as across the aisle was his family including a two year old.  Then came our middle seat companion.  He was a middle age business man and was heading home after a business conference.  Any uneasiness I had about how he would handle sitting next to a baby quickly dissolved as he starting playing with Z and told me about his 9 grandchildren with another one on the way.  He (the gentleman) even took a nap for a portion of the flight which allowed me to nurse Z without worrying if it would make him uncomfortable.

On my next flight, I was supposed to sit in the middle seat. I quickly got moved over by a mom of two who insisted that I take the window seat.  She was sweet and that flight too was uneventful.  As I was deplaning, I  reached to get my backpack out of the overhead when another passenger insisted in not only getting it down for me but also carrying it off of the plane.

Needless to say, thank you to you if you were one of those people I sat with or saw a mom in need and helped out...here's hoping that my traveling companions tomorrow are just as understanding. =)

Kansas Mime Camp

This past week, Chad and I had the opportunity to take a missions team of 10 to Kansas to help run a mime camp there.  Including our students, there were around 50 young people participating in 5 teams.  I have helped at this particular camp 3 other times dating all the way back to '03 (yes, I am getting old....er).  The camp takes place in Rose Hill, Kansas and is a true small midwestern town that I have grown to love.  I have  many wonderful memories here and it was neat to be able to share them with Chad.

This camp is always a wonderfully exhausting experience.  It runs from 9-9 each day and we fill it with Bible studies, Bible memorization, learning new mimes, (delicious) food, and chapel...we even had some down time where we "gave" our students the opportunity to practice their public speaking skills with impromptu speeches about "why rubber duckies should have mustaches" and debates such as "flip flops vs. sandals".

Since the camp ran over 4 days (5 nights), some of the local families opened up their homes to us.  Chad and I (and Ezekiel) were hosted by a family of 5.  Host homes are always a favorite part of any of my trips.  We had a great time talking each evening with our hosts.  In the mornings, the children were always excited to finish breakfast and get to play with Ezekiel on the floor.  They had a blast trying to imitate his "superman" pose. =)  This was a particularly encouraging time for me talking with our hosts and asking some on how they had raised their children.  While I know all children are a work in progress, their children were well behaved and it was obvious that they were intentional in their raising and instructing of them.

Going back to the camp, on Thursday evening, the teams put together a presentation to showcase all of the songs they had learned the past few days.  In looking at the program and deciding what we wanted our team to do, we decided we needed a light-hearted song to open up the presentation. Chad didn't like that options we had available and decided that we needed to choreograph a new one....and thus, "Joe, Joe, and Jehovah"  was created. Chad came up with the story line of the song and we spent a good portion of Wednesday night looking for just the right music to fit the story.  Click here if you want to check it out.  I think we can safely say that Chad has officially become "one of those mimes". =)

Finally, yet another one of my favorite parts of this camp is we always put an all camp mime together.  This year we did "Exodus" which, well you guessed it, is about Exodus. Click here if you want to see what a song looks like with 50 mimes.

Overall, I was blessed to have yet another opportunity to minister with my husband and son and to get to spend a whole week together serving the Lord.