Friday, July 12, 2013

The End of Our First Year!

Me listening to a memory verse
  Ministry at our church, McLean Bible Church has been a great time for both Sarah and I! We have helped lots of kids with learning bible verses, core truths, and made lots of friends.  The ministries we volunteer in are Kid's Quest and Awana! We enjoy the ministry at McLean and hope to incorporate into our ministry one day. One thing that I really enjoy about the Kids Quest ministry is the leadership team that is in place.  The director, Mary Scott, does a fantastic job communicating the vision of the church and leading her coordinators.  Her coordinators are Yasmin (Large Group) and Ana (Small Group), they do an outstanding job bringing the kids great material that is engaging!  Yasmin’s team tells the bible story, do funny skits, and sing interactive songs.  Anna’s team leads the kids in a more in depth study of the story. We are both on Ana's team. I am going to join Yasmin's team this summer!  I hope that we are able to construct a leadership team of volunteers wherever we are stationed.

Sarah and I lead the kindergarten small group.  Recently, we had to say good bye to our kindergartens as they are moving up to 1st grade.  We are going miss them!  We taught what the bible says about compassion, friendship, truth, faith, mercy, wisdom, and many others!  As small group leaders, we lead them in scripture memorization and dug deeper into the large group message.  My favorite part of the small group is the scripture memorization.  Our favorite way to memorize a verse is by putting it on a white board and erasing one or two words at a time.  When the words are all gone…everyone knows it!  We meet our new kindergartners next week; we are super excited!
Sarah  hanging with the kids
During the spring, Sarah and I had to get jobs. Sarah got a job working a Chick-fil-a. It is her second passion right after missions.  She enjoys working there but is really excited to start our future ministry! I started substituting and I really enjoyed it!.  I substitute all the grades, K through 12th. The elementary age is my favorite! They all call me Mr. A because I don’t want them mispronouncing my last name just like when I was in school haha.  A few of the classes asked me what the “A” stands for, but I tell them its my secret. As a response to that, they picked the A to stand for Awesome!  It is quite the ego boost when I walk down the hall and hear a bunch of kids say “Hey, Mr. Awesome!” followed by high fives!

For the rest of the summer, Sarah and I are finishing our growth plan!  This means that I need to finish school as well as read a few books.  I am very close to being finished; I only have 4 more sections to complete! Yippee! Sarah is reading the same books as well as setting up dinners with potential supporters and working!