Rise and Shine

Last year our family became “Fearless Readers” at Wood Lane School. We were involved in the “Book It” program through our home school group and learned that the disabled kids earn their pizzas by having others read to them. We took our own books and sat on the floor with the preschoolers and read one of our favorite stories, “John Willy and Freddy McGee.” Their teacher gave each of us a “Fearless Reader” certificate and invited us to come back again. As soon as we got in the car, the kids asked if we could go back the next week. Things got too crazy and we did not make it back last year, but the seed was planted so this year we went a step further.

I presented the idea of our home school group going to the school to read at our summer planning session, and then mentioned that a puppet show might be even more fun. The moms thought the idea had merit so we contacted the teacher who also loved the idea. I picked the song “Rise and Shine” to be our show because it would allow many children to participate and animal puppets would be easy to make. One of our home school dads built us a puppet stage, a mom made the curtains, and another mom sewed puppet forms. Many children helped to decorate the puppets, for we needed two of each kind.

We practiced the song for several weeks. I labored to come up with a few extra verses to make the song complete and changed some of the words to other verses to make them correct. (I just learned that some folks at AIG did the same thing to make the song suitable for their VBS program…I wonder how our versions compare.) We assigned behind the scenes jobs to some kids who thought operating a puppet was not for them.

Show time was today at 11 AM. We got there to set up at 10 AM and imagine our surprise when Toledo’s ABC and FOX news stations arrived to interview me (because they were told I was in charge) and record the event for their evening news casts! We had to go out in a hallway to have a prayer before we started because the teachers and kids from Wood Lane were ready to see the show before we were ready to perform it. We weren’t even running late.

All the kids did a great job! They sang well and remembered what to do. Some of our kids that I had been concerned about goofing around took their jobs seriously and pulled through for us. How neat it was to be able to minister to those kids and in turn be exposed to kids so different from us. Even though they are a public school, they let us sing “Jesus Loves Me” and the monkey song, which teaches creation not evolution. They asked if we could come back again next year and, Lord willing, we plan to do it.

Seven

Today is Heather’s birthday. Seven. Wow! It hardly seems possible. She is growing up so quickly.

She actually has had two parties in honor of this event. The first was an impromptu party on Saturday when Grandma’s expected ten guests changed their minds at the last minute leaving her with a clean house and party food for thirteen. She called to ask for suggestions of what to do with the food so I invited her to bring it to our house to celebrate Grandpa and Heather’s birthdays together. (We had actually planned to meet later that day at a restaurant.) They arrived with a cat cake minutes before Dad got Heather and the boys home from the Awana games. The look on Heather’s face was priceless!

The second party was just for our family today. We dined on pizza and soda and opened presents before heading off to prayer meeting/Awana. Then we had guinea pig cupcakes before bedtime.