Martha, Martha, Martha

While Mary sat and listened to Jesus, Martha stirred the soup.
While Mary sat and listened to Jesus, Martha swept the floor.
While Mary sat and listened to Jesus, Martha fretted about the million and one details that go with the first week of Bible school.

Ok, so maybe that last one was me.

Mary and Martha- this was the story that resonated the most with me this week. It's so easy to get caught up in things that are trivial. Case in point: my wonderful hostess was making blueberry pancakes for breakfast. They looked great, and still were a hundred-fold improvement over my typical breakfast of Poptarts, but they got browner than she wanted. "Oh no," she exclaimed as she started to fret, apologize, and make some more. While they were cooking, she asked me what Bible story I was teaching that day. I got to tell her it was Mary and Martha, and we both got a good laugh out of the timeliness of that story that morning. 

Nature print paper is magic.

Week one of Rolling River Rampage VBS happened directly after school finished, and the end of the school year for me this year was filled with upheaval and change. There were so many details to get worked out. I was thrilled to be surrounded by a familiar community of amazing, friendly people- and get to spend a little porch time in the afternoons relaxing and letting my soul settle a little bit.

Farmington was full of teachers and grandmas for volunteers, which made things run very smoothly. The first day we had 12 kids and grew to 19 by the last day. Six of our new friends were all from one family! The only trouble we had was technology that first day, as we tried umpteen combinations of cords and devices to make the DVD play on their system. Finally we settled on an old smaller TV from downstairs and someone's DVD player from home. And you know what? It worked beautifully. With a younger bunch of kids and three days instead of five, I also decided not to use the music from the curriculum and just do easy, familiar songs instead. And you know what? That worked beautifully too. Even the older kids whole-heartedly belted out Zaccheus Was a Wee Little Man. Their favorite craft that week? One of the simplest- the paper chain snake. And that is how I became Mary instead of Martha this week, and I never looked back.

Fun kid moments:
A few of the kids came early with their grandma to help set up. "Are we way early? Nobody else is here!" they asked her. Then they saw the MUMM van. "Oh- at least the captain's here!" :)

While we were cleaning up after craft time, I asked one little kindergartener who was spinning around on the stairs if he would please pick up the paper templates for me and put them in this envelope. Excited to have something useful to do, he found every single one- and I glanced over to see him proudly lick and seal the envelope to return to me.

As we did our Rapid Reminder of the day, Find Acceptance on the River, we were supposed to lean left and then lean right- I thought this was supposed to be like steering our kayak. Then one little girl in the front row made reference to the thing where "we lean on each other." I hope those words find your ear just right like they did mine. It's perhaps an unexpected picture of what church should be, watching rows of kids giggle as they topple over into each other, but yes, friends, don't worry- we are here to lean on each other. Leaning on each other helps us to focus on Jesus- that's the one thing that is needed, Martha.