Real Life Story

Today we continued to debrief and talk about all that we did on Community Serve Day -- I had to laugh when Lia told me her favorite part of Community Serve Day was the car --the only explanation she would give me as to way was "'cuz". I, however, have to wonder if it wasn't finally getting to rest her little legs after all the walking she did during our site visits.

I had the pleasure today of having my son explain to me that "Everything in the Bible is a real life story" tied in with the stone being rolled away. It was fun to affirm to him that yes, indeed, everything in the Bible is a real life story -- none of it is pretend or made up.

Another Day Closer to Easter

We are still processing everything that happened yesterday with Community Serve Day yesterday -- William has declared that he liked the packaging of the beans and rice for the people who don't have anything the best.

We also got our Easter boxes out so we can start our Easter preparations in force!

Community Serve Day 2010

Had a great day today serving in community with over 3000 others in San Diego county today http://www.sdcsd.org/ It has been an event long in the making and William thought nothing of it when I said we were doing Community Serve Day today -- though I don't think any of us were prepared for just how full our day would be. For the most part we had blue skies though there were a few threats of rain. Our kids were troopers as we visited family friendly site after family friendly site looking at how the site was running, what people were doing to serve, and sometimes joining in for a few minutes. The photo above is from one of our stops where we joined the family of my fellow MOPS co-coordinator and her family as they worked to collect food for military families at a local Vons. We also saw landscaping jobs, pot decorating and planting, sorting, portioning, and packaging of food, hygiene bag assembly, State Park campground maintenance, new mom giftbag assembly, sewing and stuffing of helmet coolers for the military, sock sorting and folding and even got to create some appreciation cards.

Then we continued our celebration with MJ's Birthday Party.

We didn't talk much about Easter today -- in fact, I'm not sure it ever got mentioned but we did experience a lot related to God's love, our call to serve and the gift of life!

MegaBlock Camels

It was a busy day today.

The day started by discussing our chocolate eggs from yesterday and how they held surprises. It was fun to hear William tie in his memories of camping at Forest Home this past fall for our All Church Retreat where we learned about the Gospel of Surprise -- he talked about the 2 hunts he went on to find surprises -- one with a bag and one with a box.

This afternoon we continued final preparations to join the other 3000 people serving with Solana Beach Presbyterian Church for Community Serve Day (http://www.sdcsd.org/) this Sunday. We got to go and pick out hygiene items that were still needed for kits to be assembled Sunday for homeless men, women and children.

Then this evening we talked more about the Afar people again, reviewing how they have to pack up their homes onto camels and move to the next spot with water. So we used our Mega Blocks to build camels tonight. We got to feed our "Love loaf" and talked about not everyone being able to have clean water to drink -- we have so much to be thankful for!

...the reality of grace...

I had really great intentions today. Last night we got home from the Ash Wednesday service and the kids had their drawings about Lent...which ended in a question of "What's your favorite things about Easter?" William had an instant reply of "eggs."
My egg lesson never materialized today -- it got lost in arguments over listening and discussions on why we should pee and poop in the potty and other urgencies of life.
As I reflected on my day and having hit day 2 without an ounce of success I realized just how long a 46 day lenten journey may be -- and so I am glad there is grace -- to begin again tomorrow.
Yet, as I reflected on our day I was also reminded that William did play with eggs today. We have an advent calendar of Kinder eggs from Germany which he had me pull out today -- because he really needed a chocolate egg-- even in all the chaos of today, God had provided our times with eggs -- even if it went unnoticed by me until I took time to reflect this evening. It wasn't the time I planned of discussing why we have eggs at Easter but it is a good reminder to me now that God is at work in my children's lives even when I am distracted. And it is also a good reminder of how our holiday's tie together -- I never thought about it when we got an Advent calendar of chocolate eggs that it kind of tied into Easter...
Kinder eggs for those of you who aren't familiar with them are made of chocolate and have a capsule inside with some type of surprise/toy -- always something that qualifies as a choke hazard and it typically has to be assembled -- the one William got today is a small horse which he assured me Hopelyn didn't get any part of while he was putting it together by himself after I told him he would have to wait for his daddy's help.
And so today we have experienced the reality of grace -- grace that gives us a fresh start for our journey tomorrow and grace that met us on our journey today providing in unexpected ways.

Ash Wednesday - the start of our Easter Journey

Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of our family's observance of Easter.We are starting our Easter journey using the 2010 Lenten Guide: a thousand words prepared by Solana Beach Presbyterian Church and collecting money in a cardboard box bank ("love loaf") to go to the Afar people in Ethiopia.

Today our Lenten guide introduced the Afar people -- my 4 year old and 2 year old discussed these nomadic people -- that is a pretty big concept for us to understand -- what it would be like to keep moving our house to find more water. But we really got excited about the idea of packing our houses up and putting them on camels -- and what a house that could be packed up and put on a camel looked like. This afternoon I printed out some pictures of camels http://www.coloring.ws/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.coloring.ws/animals/camel8.gif
and we colored them and colored our packed up houses on top of them.

We are thankful God put us in a home that we don't have to keep packing up to find water. It is my prayer, in the words of the closing of the introduction of a thousands words, that "this Lenten journey will help us all to see Jesus more vividly and to love Him more fervently."

For the next 46 days of Lent, I am committing to be intentional about sharing my faith with my children and asking you to hold me accountable in that. But I need more than just accountability -- I need your ideas and input. What makes Easter special in your house? What lasting memories of the season do you have? What elements of faith will you share with your children this season? How will you be celebrating the season of Lent with your family this year?

Thanks for sharing in this journey -- but thank you even more if you can actively take part in our journey by sharing yours.

ASH WEDNESDAY

FEB 17th