Confirmation

Well, we survived our first day of VBS! Any feelings of anxiety about not fitting in to the "well-oiled machine" quickly dissipated when I realized that someone forgot to oil the machine this morning!!! Hahaha! It was quite chaotic to say the least. Many of the classes have upwards of 20 children (preschool included)! Not sure how this happened (don't tell!), but I ended up with just 10 delightful little four year olds! (I do only have one teenager to help, so if I get more kids, they'd better come along with another helper!!) We talked about obeying God today, using Mary and Joseph as an example. Try explaining to said four year olds why Joseph wouldn't want to marry Mary after finding out she was "having God's baby!" (I have one quite precocious little girl.)

Anyway, we survived. Jacob said even though Aunt Candace was a fun teacher, he doesn't want to go tomorrow. The welcome stuff in the sanctuary was chaotic, unorganized (as all first days of VBS are), and loud (and very fun for most of the kids). But a major recipe for anxiety for Jacob. And I failed to prepare him for the "chaos" part of it all. And his class had twenty 5 year olds, many of them rowdy boys, so it was a bit chaotic too. Then back to the sanctuary for more loudness and organized chaos!! So...maybe I'll keep him in my small class tomorrow. (Not sure if it's better to encourage him out of his comfort zone-I know he'll survive-or help him enjoy it the most and keep him in a smaller class. )

Anyway...now to my post title...

A bit of background: For several months now (maybe longer than that) I have had a growing desire to be using my gifts/desire for special needs kids. I really miss that outlet/challenge/reward but have felt like there's not much I can do about it. I have wanted for years to be a part of a special needs program at a church, but we haven't really had a church home for as long as I've had that desire. Well, just last night at dinner I told Robert I felt like the Lord was leading me to start a special needs Sunday School class at Manley. It's certainly a large enough church, and there are a number of severely physically challenged kids I've spotted, not to mention the ones who look "typical" that I don't know about. So, I was asking his opinion and how he'd feel if I made that sort of commitment (and maybe if he'd want to help me because he's so great with kids). I wondered if our children's pastor might look at me like I had three heads, but knew I needed to talk to him anyway. But, let's get through VBS first...

So this morning I walked by the ladies doing the special needs class for VBS. (I was committed to the 4 year olds before I knew we were reaching out to the special needs community.) I was telling those ladies how envious I was that they got to help the special needs kids. Anyway, then for some reason I started telling them that I really felt the Lord leading me to start a special needs Sunday School class and that I needed to start looking in to that with out Children's Pastor. Well, one of the ladies, Darlene, has been praying for a year for someone to head up that exact thing, feeling like this VBS was to be the beginning (they just weren't sure who the leader should be)! And the lady next to her, Mrs. B, said (she wrote on her membership paper when she joined) that she has been praying for this since 1981 when she joined!! How's that for confirmation?! (Then as we were moving all of our kids from one spot to the other, Mrs. B was telling the children's pastor's wife, Delores, about our conversation. Delores was so excited she was in tears! Yay!! So I think it will actually happen!