Graduation Gifts

Money is tight for everyone nowadays.  As a missionary, I am at the mercy of God's provision through people giving monetary gifts.  I have been a missionary for nine months now and God has provided for my every need.  Budgeting for me is nearly nonexistent.  One day I will share my budget or as I like to call it, my financial faith.  Due to financial strain, I am forced to get creative.  This is rather exciting especially with a website like Pintrest available.  

The end of the school year is fast approaching.  There are two graduating girls in our youth group that I have grown close to.  Graduation calls for a gift to commemorate the end of ones high school career.  For many, this means shopping.  For me, it is time to get creative.  

I am not sure where this idea came from, but I am sure it was somewhere on Pintrest.  I rummaged through  my acquired picture frames and chose two smaller wooden ones.  I emptied the pictures and started the quick process of turning it into a scripture board.

 

1.) Begin with a frame with no picture, scrapbook paper or paper of your choosing, scissors, and markers.  I used the permanent marker to outline the back and the Expo markers to write on the glass.

2.) Use the back of the frame to outline the paper.  Then use scissors to cut the rectangle out.

3.) Insert the paper in the place of a picture.

4.) Here is a picture of the two that I did.  The Expo marker was used to write a verse onto the glass.  A couple of Expo markers will be included in the bag as part of the gift.

5.) Here they are all wrapped up!

The total cost of the gift was probably around $1.  When I bought the frames, I'm sure they cost about a quarter.  The paper was a whole pack for $4 and only a small rectangle piece was used.  The left overs were saved for another day.  The Expo markers were accumulated over my teaching years.  The wrapping came from Goodwill which includes the bag and paper.

Super excited!  Two gifts for two dollars! Wow!  It was fun being a little creative.  What are some ways that you save money by being creative with gift giving?  I would love to hear from you. 

VBS Promotion

This year, I have taken the role of VBS director for Huron Baptist Church.  I am already behind in promoting for this year's VBS.  A mission team from Covington County, Alabama will be coming to be teachers.  A few of the members from Huron will be helping in different areas.  The promoting and followup fall on to me to organize and accomplish.  

My first step was to make a calendar of what can be done to promote VBS in our community.  I uses a template on Microsoft Publisher to create a calendar that shows the estimated dates of when certain advertising needs to be done.  Each picture is linked to the document on Google Drive.

This calendar shows the days in May, June, and July.  The days shaded in light gray overlap with a previous month or the next month.  The days shaded in blue mark when we have trips out of town.  These days will not be used for promotion or works.  Planning ahead is the key to making sure we can enjoy time away and not be concerned about getting things done.

The following month shows a last promotion attempt in the Jordanville neighborhood where the church is located.  The week of VBS is noted with the Family Lunch typed in red font.  The final day's lunch will be an outreach for the parents and family.  The days in yellow are followup ideas.  The red box is the final day for the teachers to email me notes from the phone calls they made.

Our church has no budget for VBS...gasp!  VBS is funded purely from the mission team and out of pocket.  I spent $10 for the Director's Guide and FBC Andalusia is sending me a copy of the Worship Rally Guide.  These are the two main books that the director would need to plan, promote, and participate in VBS.  The Director's Guide included a CD with lots of templates to use for planning, promoting, and followup.  

My assignment for this week is to turn in a newspaper release form (CD), flyers for report card envelopes (CD-bulletin insert), and flyers for businesses(CD-flyer).  My concern is paper and ink.  The newspaper release form could possibly be emailed.  The flyers for report card envelopes will have two on one sheet.  They will need to be run off on colorful paper to stand out from other sheets in the students' report card envelopes.  The church has a copier but the colored paper will need to be purchased.  Business flyers will be printed in color on white card stock.  

Please pray with us for the following prayer requests:

• Huron Baptist Church as we prepare for the mission team to arrive.  
• Mission team will have a save journey to and from Oscoda, MI.  
• Children that will be reached during the week.  
• Teachers and leaders as the VBS is conducted throughout the week.

Thank you for your prayers.  I will be sure to update as VBS approaches.  The week of VBS will be focused on prayer.  Please consider being our prayer partner for the week.   

Chapel Renovations- Volunteer Time Sheets

Based on the Township meeting a few weeks ago, Livextreme Ministries, Inc. will be acquiring the Chapel on the Wurt-Smith Airforce Base.  The agreed upon included a two year time frame and $50,000 to be spent in materials and labor.  With this amount of money needing to be spent and a short time frame, it is imperative that we document every penny spent.

A template from Microsoft Word was used to create this weekly time sheet for volunteers.  This layout was simple yet, contained all of the detailed information that we need to track during mission trips and community work days.  The picture below is a link to the volunteer time sheet.

At this time, the time sheet will be kept in a large three inch binder.  There is an extra one on hand in case we need to divide the time sheets into multiple binders.  I found both of these for under a dollar at Goodwill. Within the binders, the time sheets will be separated by alphabetical dividers.  The time sheets will be alphabetized by last name.

Our first mission team will be the week of July 6th - 12th.  This organization method will be implemented as a test run.  Look for a future post to show the completed binder and how it is used.  

Please be in prayer for the team as they work on the building God has blessed us with.  Pray that we will continue to receive financial blessings for building materials.  

 

Jesus Loves the Little Children

Today was my last day of mentoring for this school year.  I have had a standing appointment every Monday morning from 10:00 to 11:00.  At the beginning of the semester, we had a lot of "snow days" which happen to be on Monday.  Finally the winter weather lightened up on Mondays so that we could enjoy our half an hour visit.

There were two kindergarten girls that we signed up for the mentoring program and waiting for someone to who would dedicate thirty minutes with each of them.  When I was asked to mentor both of these girls, I thought it went with a pattern God had established in my life.  When I was a full time teacher, I taught pre-k and kindergarten.  Volunteering as High Point Tour Guide, I was the leader of one of the two kindergarten groups.  It seemed perfect for my mentoring students to be in kindergarten also.

During our usual mentor time, we would play games that would reinforce skills that they were learning in class.  Today we had a fun day.  Each of the girls received a coloring book and crayons as a "see you later" gift.  Then we chose to either play Candy Land or color in their coloring books.  We also shared a special treat while we visited.

One of the girls decided we should play a couple of rounds of Candy Land while we ate a snack.

The other chose to color in her coloring book and munch on our mini Cheez-Its.

Mentoring was a wonderful experience.  I enjoyed the opportunity to be in a school setting again as well as work one-on-one with a child.  Each of these girls have been in my prayers since I was first asked to volunteer as a mentor.  I hope we will be paired up again next year.  If we are not, I hope I showed them that Jesus loves the little children.

Spiritual Inventory

Eleven days  from now I will be giving my testimony to a large group of teenagers.  Speaking to a large group is not new to me.  Speaking to teenagers is not new to me either.  However, putting all of that together is a rather new experience.

The definition of testimony is a formal written or spoken statement, especially one given in a court of law or evidence or proof provided by the existence or appearance of something.  What I get from this is, what I share with these teenagers needs to be brutally honest to the point that if I were being judged in the court of law there would be no cause for doubt.  My testimony needs to have detailed evidence and transparent proof that God exists in my life and makes a daily appearance.  

During my Experiencing God Bible study, one of the past units discussed how God speaks through our circumstances.  The study suggested that the participant for a "spiritual inventory" of specific times when a circumstance pointed to God.  I took the study's suggestion and began a time line of events that directed my life to where I am now.  

For now, I have a hand full of the most important events in my life.  These events whether good or bad put me on the path to my current location.  There are many details that I will add to bring more to the story of my life.  Once this timeline is up to date, it will be the evidence I need to be brutally honest with transparent proof.

My timeline was created on a template found in the Microsoft Word schedule templates.  To view my timeline click on the word timeline in this sentence.  I would love to see your Spiritual Inventory.  Comment below if you would like to share.   

Bri's Prayer Journal

Livextreme Ladies had a great time during our weekly fellowship.  It is always a time of encouragement just to listen and be heard.  I love hearing from each of the ladies in the group share their responses to the discussion topics.  Each lady is answering based on her current life situation.  Their life circumstances and personalities also shine through in their spiritual growth.

Last week we focused on prayer journals.  I challenged each of the ladies that have not already established a way in which they document prayers to begin a prayer journal that best suits them.  For the ladies that already use prayer journals, I encouraged them to continue in their diligence.  I also mentioned if they feel the need to revamp their prayer journal after hearing these new ideas to do so to keep their prayer lives fresh.

Bri shared her prayer journal and explained a few ways she keeps up with her prayers.  She uses a three ring binder with dividers and loose leaf paper to keep up with her journal.

The first section in her prayer journal is her prayers and praises.  I love how creative and resourceful she was in making her dividers.  The dividers are pieces of construction paper that coordinate with the binder cover.  She punched holes on the side so it would fit in the binder.  She then printed the label on white paper with the funky font and she along with her niece colored the letters.  

In this section, Bri uses a template to guide her prayers.  The picture below will take you to the blog where you can print off this template for free.  It is a great tool to prompt prayers and to keep track of requests along with their answers.  When she writes out her prayers, she also uses the acronym PRAY to form her prayer in order.  P- Praise   R- Repent   A- Ask   Y-Yeild

The next section Bri uses is for her Favorite Bible Verses.  This section is where she writes verses that pertain to her life or a certain topic she is studying.  

The last section is for Random Tidbits.  In this section, she keeps information sheets that pertain to spiritual matters.  She had a few papers that had info about the books of the Bible.

It is wonderful to see ladies growing in their spiritual lives.  Every lady in our group and every lady or person that reads this blog is either in a relationship with Christ or has the opportunity to have a relationship with Christ.  We all have the same ways of fellowship with Christ.  We can read the Bible and pray among other disciplines but these ways of communication can look different for each person.  I pray that you and the ladies in our group will continue to strive to grow in our spiritual lives.  There are many other tools that can be used to help facilitate our spiritual growth.  What are some tools that you use to encourage your own spiritual growth?  Please leave comments and ideas so we can explore may other spiritual tools.

Active Listening

Looking as though you are listening to a sermon on Sunday morning is easy.  You sit very still looking at the pastor and occasionally nod your head in agreement.  Actively listening is more difficult.  Thoughts can easily invade our focus on the message the pastor is presenting.  Are we getting as much out of a sermon as God is wanting us to get out of it?  The Holy Spirit is working through our pastor by giving him the words to say.  We participate in this encounter with the Holy Spirit by listening to the sermon with our heart as well as our ears.  

This week, Livextreme Ladies will talk about active listening in our church lives, specifically active listening during sermons.  There are many resources to find information on active listening skills.  One article that I found listed five key elements of active listening.  The article and the website's information are for improving skills related to your career, but many of these skills can also be an helpful in our everyday life.  

The five key elements of active listening include pay attention, show that you are listening, defer judgement, respond appropriately, and provide feedback.  These elements are important to listening to a sermon just like they are important when you are listening to a friend.  I would like to take a moment to share how these elements can be used during or after actively listening to a sermon.  

1. Pay Attention

• Look at the pastor/speaker directly or follow along in your Bible
• Empty your mind of thoughts that do not pertain to the message
• Focus on how the message relates to you and your life
• Avoid being distracted by environmental factors
• "Listen" to the speaker's body language

2. Show That You're Listening

• Nod occasionally
• Smile and use other facial expressions (raising eyebrows)
• Note your posture (sit up straight)
• It is ok to encourage the pastor/speaker with an Amen every once in a while :)

3. Defer Judgment

• Allow the pastor/speaker to finish before bringing your opinion to a conclusion 
• Continue to actively listen even when your "toes" get stepped on ;)

4. Respond Appropriately

       Your response will depend on how the Holy Spirit is working in your heart by the end of the sermon.  When the Holy Spirit is working within you be sure to respond in the corresponding way and in a timely manner.

• Be open and honest in your response
• Pray at your seat during the invitation for what God has laid on your heart
• Kneel at the alter and bare your heart to God
• Share with the pastor what is weighing heavy on you and pray with him
• Make public decisions that you have made

5. Provide Feedback

       This is where our printable for the week comes in.  In order for us to remember what the pastor has said during the half hour or so that he has preached, it might be a good idea to take notes.  There are many ways to take notes.  The Cornell Method is very easy to use and covers the main concepts of a sermon such as scripture, notes on each passage or verse, application, and key verse.  The ladies will use this method for Sunday and share feedback next week.  A few ideas about providing feedback would include the following:

• Reflect what you understood from the message
• Talk to someone that attended the sermon about one thing you learned
• Ask the pastor/speaker questions to clarify certain points
• Summarize the pastor's/speaker's comments periodically in your notes/mentally
• Comment to the pastor/speaker about what you received from the message

 

The plan for tonight is for the ladies to discuss how they are active listeners during a sermon.  I will then take the time to introduce them to the Cornell Method of note taking.  The challenge will be for them to use this method to take notes during one of the sermons they hear this week.  Next week, we will share our experience in taking notes and give feedback about this method of note taking.  Please join us in our attempt at being a more active listener during sermons and using tools such as the Cornell Method to help us.  Leave a comment describing how you are an active listener during sermons and how you use note taking as a tool to keep you focused.