Gnats, Study Locales, and Children's Ministry

I've decided to take it easy on schoolwork for the next 2 days. If I read, it will be light. This means there is more time to write. I forgot to mention a few things earlier today. Have you ever noticed that the summer brings the gnats? They form armies in my room and not even Raid will stop them. The only effective weapon I have is the suction end of the vacuum and even after that they seem to come back with avengeance! Does anyone know of any special tricks to get rid of gnats?

One of the things I forgot to mention about studying is the location. I've tried studying at Starbucks and while it's a good environment, it does happen to be a bit expensive. If you plan to study there, do the iced Green Tea... it's only about $2. After you run out, you can just drink water. I've also studied at my local Panera Bread. It's somewhat reasonable prices ($5-$8) for the quality of food, but the nice part is the unlimited fountain drinks for only $1.50. You can get Raspberry Tea, regular tea, lemonade, fruit punch, and all the other drinks... you can change what drink you get and you get to serve yourself on refills. They also have free wireless internet if that's your need. If I had a laptop, Panera would take priority in my studying. If you are spending a few hours studying this is a good place to go. The environment is similar to Starbucks. However, they close at 9pm. Your studying would have to be done in the morning or afternoon. Since this is not typical of college students to do, I have a third option...

Your other choices are Waffle House, Ihop, or Denny's. It's been a long time since I've been to Waffle House but I hear not all of them are open 24 hours. Ihop is open 24 hours, but they can be rather expensive on food (like $8-$12?). The positive for them is if you only get something like coffee, it's unlimited and you could get by on just that. Some of them also allow you to plug in your computer. My study locale of choice is Denny's... why? 1. Denny's is 24 hours 2. The drinks are unlimited (this includes hot chocolate and cappucino... unlike Ihop) 3. The food is reasonably priced ($6-$9) and the "smothered" cheese fries are a good portion for $5 for you. 4. The people seem to have the "average Joe" type of attitude and aura. It's a comfortable environment in a way because the employees don't put on a show. Some might call this being unprofessional, but I wouldn't say that.

Ok, so I've been helping out my best friend on Wednesday nights at his parents' church watching the 3-5 year olds for a few weeks with him. I decided to do this so I could get more experience with kids. I've never done children's ministry before really and I need to start somewhere. After doing this a few weeks I'm just beginning to build a relationship with the kiddos. It's kinda exciting to see the kids walk in and say, "hey, I remember you" and give me a hug. They even remembered my name! I have their names down for the most part now. I'm noticing the amount of patience I'll need to have with these kids. Last week I was punched in the crotch... I looked at my friend and said, "um, what do I do about this?" It will also surely help me to take charge of situations better.

One thing I'm trying to do is show more love to the most wild kid in the class. Something tells me I should. I've also had the youngest girl in the room repeat scripture after me. She was a good student! This has been pretty fun overall. I love playing with the kids as well. They like being flown around the room in the big red bucket. One thing I wanna do is focus more around the teaching/storytime/lesson of the night or maybe have them memorize scripture. I wonder if we're allowed to deviate from the normal lesson plans or maybe we could expand on them? Tonight I knew my friend would be playing guitar in the youth for the first part of the time so I wanted to try and tell a Bible story or something for the kids. I may be an amatuer at this thing, but I REALLY enjoyed it. Thankfully Christina (my friend's gf) was there to help. I wanted to tell the kids the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18. My friend suggested I do an object lesson.. maybe use the puppets in the room. I went to thinking...

So I read through the story shortly before and as they arrived I set the stage. I used 2 knapkins and turned over 2 foam cups to put beside the knapkins. After playtime all the kids sat down at the table. I put a small handful of pretzels on each knapkin and said it was the wood for the altars (the altars being the cups). I got another cup with water to set on the side. I used a small bear puppet to be Elijah and a horse to be a prophet of Baal. I introduced the prophets to the kids and made the intro. Christina began reading the story and I moved the hands of the puppets as appropriate. The Baal prophet's god didn't consume the offering, Elijah taunted him, then Elijah asked them to pour water on his altar 3 times. So I poured the water on the pretzles 3 times. I was considering having a lighter, but it was too late and that might cause more trouble then it was worth. Then Elijah the bear prayed to God and God's fire (my hand) consumed the altar. Christina finished reading the passage and then had them repeat something of a memory verse for the lesson of the story... "'The Lord-He is God! The Lord-He is God!" -1 Kings 18:39. When Johnny came in, they all said the verse for him. We were able to teach them little things along the way, while I wanted to do more... things like wet wood won't catch fire.

Next week I'll review for them briefly and give them the verse reference. Not bad for preparing in like 20 minutes, eh? After hanging around them a few times like this I'm thinking everyone should spend at least some time in children's ministry before they have kids. I am learning all kinds of things already... thanks to Johnny and these experiences.