Roly, Roly, Roly......It was one of those nights at church. *sigh* We go to the evening service as well as the morning service where there is Sunday School. The evening service is more relaxed, there are more musicians, and while there is no Sunday school, the service itself is shorter, only about an hour long.
I bring along a little bag of quiet Crayola activites for Topsy to do, but well, I forgot that bag tonight....
You might have forgot your Crayola bag of crafts too:
1. if you had dinner (Italian spagetti and beef meatballs and Thai pork meatballs in satay sauce with rice) to pack into the car as well as the four kids (plus drop one girl home), as well as picking up an extra kid on the way!
2. if you were trying to be 10 minutes earlier than normal because you needed to buy the coriander (cilantro) that was to be part of the Thai pork meatballs in satay sauce.
3. if, just as you had the car packed with food and kids, you realized you could not find the keys to the car anymore (yes the ones that you had used to get into the car in the first place)
4. if after looking for the stupid key for ten futile minutes in the dark and rain, (there went the coriander dream) you had to drag your sopping wet self back insideto call Hubby out of church to come home with the other key, and then call the other kid's parents to tell them we couldn't pick him up..... ( no, i was not feeling in the least bit godly after that!)
So..... no Crayola bag to tide Topsy over.
Now, you have to understand that Topsy is the musical one in the family. He is also a big News Boys fan.
He often 'becomes' Peter from the Newsboys at home ( 'Hi, I am Peter from the Newsboys. I have no hair, I have black eyes and black nails.' )
At the evening service during the singing, sometimes he will go up to the musos and quietly open his imaginary guitar case; sling it over his shoulder, tune the thing and then play the song with them. He just does what they do and is fine.
It is only really a worry when we sing 'Blessed Be Your Name". You see, the Newsboys cover that song, and we have them on DVD covering that song.
Topsy does a mean imitation of Peter dancing to 'Blessed Be Your Name' . It is a very odd knee-wobbling dance, and seeing as we are no dancers, that is the only dancing Topsy sees. So when the song 'Blessed Be Your Name' comes up, Topsy snaps into Peter mode, and does this dance which makes him look like he needs an exorcism and fast!
That is when the plug is pulled, and he becomes Flynn working on his Crayola activities again.
Tonight Topsy was doing the drums, but then some song set him off into Peter mode, so he had to get his guitar. Then drums again, then guitar; here, there, here again.....
Whatever was going on, it was distracting me from concentration on praising God, so I pulled the plug.
But then he wriggled, he sighed, he tried to wipe my face with his spare T-shirt. He started to whine about wanting to go to the quiet room.........
I would have taken him to the quiet room when it was time for the sermon, but now I was not about to reward his behaviour. Instead, he spent some time in a temporary wrong choice corner in the cold car (punished me as well, shivering out there)
He came back and was fine, but grrrr, sometimes..........sometimes.....
Anyways, guess what?
Last night I had one of my big crazy ideas. This was it: If we are hoping to go to Kenya for a holiday in 3 years wouldn't that be ample time for our church to prepare and save money for a group to do a 2-3 week mission in either Uganda or Tanzania? We could be part of the mission first, before our holiday!
My vision is to have some of the older keener youth group kids be able to come too, and be part of running a kid's and youth program or whatever else the church group does! Wouldn't that be fantabulous?
So I have given the idea to Hubby because turning big ideas into a reality is his thing. And training for long term goals is also his thing. So I am certainly praying that a core group at church will catch the vision and be excited and inspired!!! Those who go will come back probably far more challenged, blessed and changed than those we go to minister to!
The first couple of frugal things I am going to try are:
1. go back to shopping at Aldi, where there is only one brand of each item and the overall price is cheaper.
2. Once a Month cooking.... heard of it? So in theory, you spend one day cooking a month's worth of meals to freeze. Hmmmm for the experiment, should I go whole hog and try the month, or should I go for caution and do a fortnight of meals. Hmmm, Ok I will a month. That being this Saturday, maybe. Oh sweet Mama, what have I signed up for. Though I think this will work better in winter than in Summer when we like to BBQ.
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