Milestone 7

Last night was the Christmas party and closing program for KidzLife, the elementary-aged children's outreach program I am in charge of at our church. This was the seventh semester we had run the program (and our fourth Christmas party), and things went incredibly smoothly, from the opening meal through the distribution of gift bags as the end. Praise be to God!

I was asked yesterday morning what lesson God had been teaching me in 2008, and without giving the question much thought I said, "Something to do with the fact that I'm not infinite; dealing with limits and allowing others to do what God has called them to do." Last night was a confirmation of that. I actually had little to do last night, other than act as M.C. and introduce various people who offered prayers, led the singing, reviewed the lessons and memory verses, and so forth. The biggest blessing to me, and I think to everyone there, was a presentation of the Christmas story using Godly Play, done by a young girl who is part of our leadership team. While some of the kids were acting up and some of the adults were talking during other parts of the night, she had the room's undivided attention as she introduced cut-out characters and placed them on the road to Bethlehem, and led us to "wonder" what it was like to be there the night that Christ was born.

On the down side, when we lined up the children to receive their gifts at the end, it was abundantly clear that our male attendance has dropped dramatically in this academic year. I know that we are now in competition with a Boy Scout troop that meets the same night, but I'm not sure what to do about that.

We start again on Shrove Tuesday, which is the last Tuesday in February this year. On the one hand, I don't like having that big of a gap between semesters, but on the other hand, we don't seem to be able to keep interest in the program beyond 15 weeks at a stretch, and I think we may need all of that time to prepare for the next session. I am feeling led to explore Daniel and Revelation with the kids (in very broad strokes), and to do the weekly dramas with puppets (which all need to be created from scratch!).