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The Help.

1 Oct
Have you read or seen The Help?  It was my early summer book and just a few weeks ago while I was in the Cities on my MN tour [post-AAA] I saw the film with pal, Kara. [This post has been a long time coming.]  I don’t care to discuss book vs. movie reviews because we already know the answer.  [Right?  Right.]  But I think, whether you’ve read the book or seen the film or both, there’s one part that seems to stick with people.
You is kind.  You is smart.  You is important.
The story line is one of African American females who worked in white women’s homes as maids, fixing meals and caring for the children.  One of the main characters in the story repeated three lines to the children she cared for every chance she got.  You is kind.  You is smart.  You is important.
If only every child was told this every day.  
There was a six grader in a southeastern Minnesota community who committed suicide two weeks ago.  It makes one wonder if anyone told him this message.  If they did, did he believe it?
I suppose that’s the other part.  We can say the words but do our actions show what we say?  How do we ensure that they know they’re important, have gifts, and potential?

That’s one of the huge reasons I feel called to ministry.  To tell children that they are kind, smart and important.  To help a community share this message – to live this message – with the youth.  To guide children – and all people – in discovering their own gifts and purpose, and to point those out as I see them.

After hearing about the suicide in the nearby community, I wanted to preach to the children and youth.  I wanted to tell them that there is never anything they cannot come and talk to me about.  They are loved beyond measure and have gifts to live.

You is kind.  You is smart.  You is important.  

passion.

29 Mar
I’m a wordy person.  I associate a lot of meaning with words and am cautious that I use the right word in conversation and writing.  I love etymology and a good thesaurus.  If we’re talking about the written word, I love a good type too.  Fonts and typography get me excited.
The newest word I’m in love with?

passion |ˈpa sh ən|noun1 strong and barely controllable emotion : a man of impetuous passion. See note at emotion .• a state or outburst of such emotion : oratory in which he gradually works himself up into a passion.• an intense desire or enthusiasm for something : the Englishhave a passion for gardens.• a thing arousing enthusiasm : modern furniture is a particularpassion of Bill’s.

There is something about a strong and barely controllable emotion.  Something that makes me so excited I’ll risk lack of sleep to do it.  That thing that unleashes a vigor, a fervor, a mania.  (Thank you, thesaurus.)  Something that leads to eagerness and intense energy.
Passion is crucial.  
So important that a lack of it could kill you.  
Not in the literal sense but in real seriousness – what is life without passion?  
[You could probably say that Pinterest feeds many of my passions, and fed the formative push for this blog post by unveiling the following to me on a board I follow – ]
What about life makes you barely able control your excitement and enthusiasm?  
If you can’t even contain it [Please!  Tell me you can’t!], what do you do with it?  
How do you share it?  
What happens?  
Tell me!
If you’ll allow me to consider this a passion, here’s my example: Vacation Bible School.  VBS is like the perfect combination of all things I love and a week in the summer where my energy is high despite incredible lack of sleep and long hours of work.  Love it.  L-O-V-E love it.  
Crafts?  Check.  
Crazy games?  Check.  
Loving on kids?  Check.  
Teaching?  Check.  
Community?  Check.  
Watching kids discover the love of Jesus?  Check.
[I’m getting super giddy just thinking about it!]
Passion is on the brain for Pinterest reasons and for ministry reasons.  Many know my secret but if you don’t, here you go [even after I swore off revealing secrets on this blog as of, oh, yesterday] – I interview with a potential church this weekend.  Stress levels are high as I anticipate the questions and the nerves that I hope won’t show.  If it’s a good fit, it’s a good fit.  If not, other options will come.  But I wonder how I wear my passion; how will they see my passion for ministry?  I hope I can share who I am – who I’m created to be – and wear the enthusiasm I have for ministry in the church.  I’ll most certainly keep you posted.
[It’s still March and this is my 33rd blog post of the month.  Safe to say that writing/sharing/being in this media relationship with you via blog land is a passion of mine?  Perhaps.]

confession.

17 Jan
I don’t know if you know this about me but I have a very special place in my heart for redheads.  I envy females with gorgeous natural red hair (I tried it from a box once – in high school.  Didn’t work for me.) and find myself attracted to redheads of the opposite sex.  (‘Tis true.)  And redheaded children?  They are often my favorites.  (Not that I play favorites …)  I’m not entirely sure what it is but they’re just too cute.  I would love to somehow ‘rig’ my potential childbearing so the result has red locks. (Working on it.)
So when a little red-headed girl in a sweater dress – maybe four years old – forced her way into my pew on Sunday, stuck out her hand and said, “Peace be with you,” I melted into a puddle.  Not only was she the cutest to begin with – a petite little redheaded cutie pie – but she wasn’t shy.  I’d never met this girl before; I was visiting my friend, Adam’s, church in Edina, the Sunday he was installed as their new high school youth coordinator.  As the congregation greeted one another, she walked right up to me – and everyone in the general area – to share the peace of Christ with boldness.  

That we might learn to do the same.

from my day campers –

16 Aug

creation camp (2).

12 Aug

My current facebook status?
Lindsay S. labels day camp a grand success!
My last two days with the fifteen kiddos (and adult friends) were as pleasant and fun as the first! Mrs. Amanda, college roommate and BFF, came and helped out for a day, and Tammy had perfect attendance and gets a gold star for always cleaning up my messes. Creation campers created human sundials in the parking lot using the sidewalk chalk we had made ourselves, had water relays in the courtyard, and played lots of games. (‘My grandma’s big fat toe’ was easily the favorite. I’m hopeless at it as the skill involved is answering every question asked with “my grandma’s big fat toe” and not cracking up while saying it. What did you eat for breakfast? My grandma’s big fat toe. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? My grandma’s big fat toe. I can’t even make it through the questions before I start to smirk.) We painted birdhouses, assembled the remainder of the health kits, and took crazy pictures. I made them eat pudding cups without their hands or spoons, we shared our week of camp with the ladies at the assisted living facility, and ended our days together with one big group hug.
I received so much love from these campers in the last four days. They escaped secretly during snack to all go to the second floor craft area where they made me a poster that said, “We’ll miss you, Lindsey!” I don’t even care that they spelled my name wrong! I got countless hugs, lots of “I’ll miss you,” and gracious thank yous. Camper J. had to leave early for a fishing trip. His mom picked him up, they walked outside, and then she must have told him to come back inside and say thank you. He ran through the kitchen, past Tammy and I, threw back a “thank you!” and pointed to me while yelling, “Good pastor!” That, combined with everything else wonderful about day camp, completely made my week.

creation camp (1).

10 Aug

I pled with the staff many months ago for the opportunity to hold a day camp. After a couple summers in Stillwater, I knew that I would miss the many camps and children/youth activities that I so enjoyed at church. Dates were put on the calendar, information mailed, a dozen kids signed up. Here we go.

We have all sorts of fun planned for the four-day camp, including but not limited to making ice cream in baggies, ridiculous games, holding competitions to bring no-waste lunches, opposite day fun, frozen tshirts, terrariums, decorating team creation sheets, and making sidewalk chalk.

Highlight of the last two days – the “everyone-needs-to-have-both-feet-off-the-ground-for-three-seconds-using-this-wooden-box” teambuilder. These fourteen first through sixth graders worked together in impressive ways to accomplish the task at hand. Really, the group has been amazing in so many ways. They get along splendidly, work to include everyone, and can easily begin and sustain a game by themselves. These first two days have been a complete joy and I only anticipate the next/last two to be the same. It’s been a blast and I hope the campers agree!

I went to camp.

21 Jul
I never went to camp as a child. I remember bringing the form home every spring from church, stoked about the possibility of going during the summer but camp as a reality for me never came to fruition. (*nudge, nudge* Karen G. *nudge* Fruition!) My first trip to camp was as a counselor while I worked in Stillwater at Trinity. We took 3-6th graders to Bay Lake – a camp on AN ISLAND. We went to camp on an island. It was awesome.
So when Kendall was taking a group of boys to the Boundary Waters for camp and no ladies wanted to attend, I was jealous but was offered a few nights at camp as severance. I accepted. I went to Shores of St.Andrew Bible camp on Monday afternoon for the night. We had eight campers or so attending from Grace this particular week so I would check in on them, say hello, and enjoy the general splendor of a lake. (A foreign idea in and around Dawson.) There were camp songs, mosquitos and pirates stealing tire inner tubes – no element of camp was left untouched. Love it and can’t wait to create it for day camp at Grace in August!

A day late but no money short.

17 Jun
My apologies to my devoted nightly readers – shout-out to Mary O. – as I let you down last night. *head hanging* I realize that you were probably on the edge of your seat. Did they raise enough money for a cow? Was the craft an absolute disaster or success? How many hot dogs does it take to serve a crowd of 65 children?
I promise I had a good excuse. My younger brother came into town! Ben, who was home in WI for only a matter of days after his month-long national park-hopping experience out west, decided to take a short Minnesota tour. He rolled into Dawson around 5, ate dinner (“Supper” in western MN – I’ve been corrected many times.) with the pastors and VBSers, and then took, oh, just a forty mile bike ride while I did the VBS thing for the last evening. He was a dear and helped us clean up from the chaos at church and then we hung out at my apartment. This morning we both slept in, ate oatmeal and drank coffee. We were going to play a round of golf (To which every one of my co-workers responded with, “You play golf?” No. I don’t but I was willing to hit a few balls and drive his cart.) but it was quite windy this morning so we 86’d that plan. He was Cities-bound by noon to make it to Minneapolis for an evening canoe derby with a few cousins of ours. Anyways, I had a visitor. Hence, no blog post. Apologies.
I feel a tiny bit empty inside. A little lost. My gears need to be changed to a post-VBS world. VBS is over. Last night was a great final evening. In crafts we donned our tie-dye t-shirts and decorated picture frames. (We’ll mail each camper a group picture next week to put in their frames!) We did our normal rotation and then ended with a program in the sanctuary with parents, grandparents, and friends in attendance.

As part of our closing program, we did our “show us a cow!” ditty. There were 26 cows on the screen as of earlier that evening; we were nine cows short of purchasing our dairy cow. (That’s $90 in non-VBS speak that had to have been put in the pool earlier that night. Our kitchen crew was wonderful to count the change so we’d have the results.) We put our chart up on the screen, explained the process to the new people present, and started yelling. And yelling. “Show us a cow! Show us a cow! Show us a cow!”
You should have heard the cheers when we saw our final cow on the screen! (My brother was in the church parking lot, returning from his bike ride, and he said he heard them outside!) The campers went crazy! Yelling, screaming, clapping! They were so excited that we had brought in enough coins to buy our dairy cow through Lutheran World Relief. It made me positively giddy to see how excited these kids were about giving their quarters away to help a family they don’t even know and will never meet. Easily the highlight of the week for me.

VeeBeeS #3

15 Jun
Tonight was wonderful, less chaotic, and just plain fun. The campers are into the routine now so things go much more smoothly and they continue to have lots of fun as they hear about parables, craft things, play games (I had some major sweaty third grade boys tonight after wild games of kickball in the church parking lot.), sing songs with lots of wild actions, and be herded about by their shepherd leaders.

It was a rainstick-making paradise on second floor for crafts tonight. Many of the kids were extremely dedicated to their work, decorating their packing tubes with ribbon, paint, and sequins, and filling them with rice, cotton balls, and magic beans. There were looks of intense concentration and even a few smiles; I think they’re having fun.
The highlight of the night for me was our opening time all together in the sanctuary. As I mentioned last night, we are collecting coins to buy a dairy cow through Lutheran World Relief – three hundred and fifty dollars worth of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. The kids were so excited to throw their coins into the wishing pond and anticipated the revealing of the amount of money we made last night. We projected a chart on the screen – one “coin” on the chart was equal to $10 so there were a total of 35 “coins” on the chart. Everyone yelled, “Show us a cow!” and a cow would appear on top of each coin for the money that was raised. (Confused? I’m having a hard time explaining it. If you’ve given up understanding, just know that it was AWESOME.) We yelled, “Show us a cow!” FOURTEEN times. That’s right – there was $140 in our wishing pond just last night alone!
I was absolutely blown away by the amount of money the campers brought in last night and I’m certain there was just as much in the wishing pond tonight. (Tammy will take tonight’s money to the bank to be counted early tomorrow morning.) We are well on our way to buying ourselves a dairy cow for a family who will use it for milk and to make a living. The campers are super pumped about making our goal so here’s to hoping tomorrow will bring in the rest that we need!

vbs day dos

14 Jun

Because I love it so much [proof seen above], you get the daily play-by-play. Day two is done and behind us. We sang more rainforest songs, introduced the parable of the lost sheep with a super-engaging skit, played games, tie-dyed tshirts, and survived the rain (which was only to be expected in the rainforest). The VBS goers are also bringing in all their coins to throw into our wishing pond for our coin quest; we’re trying to raise $350 to buy a dairy cow through Lutheran World Relief! We’re going to try our hardest … but may end up with only enough pennies, dimes and quarters for a few hens and chicks. (Which is still great!)
Tomorrow: Another night together for dinner, songs, and chaos. And the craft? Rainsticks! We will be giving the children hammers and nails … watch out!
The first and second graders had the privilege of eating in the rainforest tent tonight.

The pre-k and kindergarten group was the best at squirting their shirts with dye! (They also get points for being the cutest!) Karen, the tie-dye expert, explains how the process works.
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