I’m wiped out. But in the best way possible. I spent most of the day in ministry with the kids of our church. Sunday School, an after church event, and Youth Group. There are LOTS of photos of our day over on our Facebook page: but I wanted to post these photos of our after church project.
Our church likes to hold its Church Council meetings once a month on Sunday’s after the service. I’m not a fan. For so many reasons, but a big one being that our kids are left to their own devices while this meeting goes on. Parents who attend have to pop in and out to check on their children — which can be frustrating. So, I decided I’d do something about that this month. We had so much fun today, I think I’ll keep doing something about it until our Church catches on that maybe council meetings might be something we do on another day.
Only a few kids stayed, but we had a quick Easter Egg hunt in our Sunday School classroom. In the eggs, I had hidden a puzzle (along with a wee bit of candy) explaining our project: to build towers as tall as we could with marshmallows and toothpicks.
So much fun. So much sticky fun! The meeting ended after about 40 minutes and my kids were still hard at work–we stayed as long as we could and when it was time to go, I asked Geo, “Are you done?” and he said, “Oh, Mom, I don’t think I’ll ever be finished!”
I gave a bag of mini marshmallows and a box of 250 toothpicks to each team. When we do it again, I’ll provide more toothpicks! Learning curve. 😀 But otherwise, we had so much fun.
My favorite line of the day came from the 9 year old in the room, on the “men” team. (His designation — We’re young men) “Men don’t eat marshmallows, they build with them.” And then 10 minutes later I caught him popping marshmallows on the sly. “These are the first three, I swear.” Ha!
So now you know. In case you were wondering what men do with marshmallows.
None this has a bit to do with Jesus. But my son said something pretty amazing to me on the way to youth group tonight, he said, “You know mom, just creating a safe space where kids can be together is sacred.”
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I think the “men” team did a pretty good job! I wondered how G would tackle the project. I know how the architect in me would have done it. (Engineers vs. architects are always an interesting conversation starter, right?)
Anyway, G couldn’t have said it any better. Just having a safe place where kids can have fun is a sacred act. That it happens to be in a church is a bonus because the subtle subconscious message is that church can be fun. Kudos to you for being so creative!