Children’s Ministry Podcast!
I stumbled upon a children’s ministry podcast today, and it’s well worth listening to.
http://www.cmmonthly.com/
Podcasts are produced monthly. So far the topics covered are: Discipline, and Releasing Volunteers Into Ministry
Toybox Tales: Children’s Pastors Edition
Rated CPO (Children’s Pastors Only)
Karl Bastian, the Kidologist and creator of Toybox Tales for kids has created a Toybox Tale exclusive for Children’s Ministry Leaders.
Kid Fest 2007
As you can see, Kid Fest was a blast! This annual Back To School event for the children and families in our community is the highlight of my year! My heart beats for placing smiles on the faces of children and at the same time providing some much needed school supplies for families in need!
As I walked around with a hand full of ballons, giving them to every kid I met, I discovered a kid who kept receiving ballons, yet his hands kept becoming empty. As I gave him yet another balloon, he explained to me why he didn’t have a balloon even though he had received plenty of them. He said he was letting them go up into the sky so that everyone else would get the signal that we were there so they could come too! Of course this thrilled me, so I kept giving him balloons, and counting to three to signify to him that it was ok to let the balloon float up into the sky. I love how children communicate! Now maybe I don’t have the gift of interpretation, but I interpret this child’s action of letting balloons float into the sky so that others would get the signal to mean that he was having a blast and wanted other kids to experience all the fun he himself was experiencing!
It was an amazing day! It took me about a week to recover from it, which is part of why I am blogging so late about it. But the community was blessed, I had a great team serving, and got to meet a ton of families and touched their lives with the love of God!
Kyla’s Victory Over Cancer, Again!
CANCER, not a word any of us want to hear the doctors utter to us about us, or about those that we love. It’s definitely not a word that a mother wants to hear the doctors utter about their 5 year old child, but two years ago this is the message Diane heard about Kyla. These are the words I heard as the phone rang at around 7am. The beginning of a long battle that ended after several difficult treatments.
We celebrated her healing only to discover a year later that cancer had returned once again, and this time more aggresively. As Kyla faced her second battle with cancer, her mom and all of us who love her experienced hearts filled with fear, pain and despair – not this again! But the strange thing about it is that Kyla didn’t seem bothered by it at all. As she went in for her first surgical procedure, she was laying on her bed singing the words of a song. From her lips flowed the words “I’ve got victory, the sweet, sweet vicory in Jesus….”
From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise… (Psalm8:2a)
Could it be that the faith of this 5 year old far surpassed and surpasses that of those of us in her life that have walked with God much longer and know of His power to heal and give victory? I think the answer is yes. No wonder Jesus holds children up before us and encourages us to follow their example – they teach us so much.
Kyla’s treatment became complicated along the way. The problem was that, according to the doctors, “she was healing too rapidly.” Why was this a problem? Because if they continued the treatment when there was nothing there to treat, there was risk of damaging her boday in a way that would effect her as an adult. If they stopped treatment, they risked having the cancer return later on at some point. It was a tough place to be in, but her mom decided to continue treatments, and Kyla recently completed her treatments for cancer and continues to sing praises to God. She loves Jesus, talks about Him everytime I talk to her on the phone, and she was correct – she does have victory in Jesus!
Kyla & her Mom Diane are able to smile once again. By the way, her mom recently told me that her hair is finally coming back, but she’s cute with or without it.
