The Count Down Has Begun!!

This year is my first year ever directing a Kids Christmas Pageant and it is just another thing to add to my list of firsts over the past 6 months!!! I am so blessed to work with the kids I work with!! There are about 25 kids who have been to every practice for the past month and a half and they are doing amazing!!! We have practice Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights for an hour. The kids have continued to blow me away!! These parts are not small easy lines they are paragraphs on top of paragraphs and they have them all memorized!! It just blows my mind how amazing they are doing.

The play consists of 8 scenes and 8 songs and we have two more practices left until the big night!! One tomorrow night and then a dress rehearsal on Saturday morning!! :)

The play is about a young Shepard boy named Zeke who wants to be anything but a Shepard. It is narrated by Zeke's sheep named Snowflake. Zeke has decided that he will be anything besides a Shepard until one night he realizes just how special being a Shepard is. After being made fun of by his class mates and being told he will never be anything more then a shephard Zeke is approached by and angel who tells him "Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For until you is born this day in the city of David, a savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." Zeke then makes his way to the stable where the baby Jesus is born and he finally realizes that if he wasn't a shepard he wouldn't have seen an angel or the baby Jesus. God had something special in mind for Zeke and for all those who are in the right place at the right time.

One of the songs we sing is call "Where I Belong" and the chorus says...

When I'm where I belong God can use me, When I'm where I belong I won't fail. There's work to be done and I am the one so I'll stay right where I belong, right where I belong.

Over the past week God has been really using this song to speak to me. I have been beating myself up a lot lately saying that this play is going to turn out horrible and that I am going to look bad and the kids are going to look bad and what will people think of me then. But every time these thoughts come into my head this song comes to mind and God reminds me that I am where I belong and He won't allow me to fail.

Then the first verse says, "There's only one me unique as can be no ones else can do what I can. Whenever He calls I'll give Him my all I'm part of His wonderful play." This is what I say back to myself. It might not be easy and it might not be the best play or lesson or objective lesson but no one else can do what God has called me to do and I am part of His wonderful plan.

I praise God that even when we are in the midst of the buisness of the season that He takes the things that we are doing and teaches us something! :) How great is our God!! :)

I'm Back

Okay so seriously when I moved to Scottsbluff I promised a lot of people that I would continue to blog on what is going on in my life and in the ministry but never have I been more busy then I am right now! I mean I can barely take time to pee these days much less write a blog post. But low and behold I found sometime! :) I do still have to pee but it will wait till I am done with this post! :) hehehe

There has been a lot going on since the last time I posted....

Went to Denver to have a sleep over with Jen and Kelly
Went to the Foursquare Fall District Conference
Started dating a boy (I mean guy) lol
Had a road trip to Colorado and California
My brother got married
Community Wide Harvest Festival
And now I am working on a huge Children's Ministry Christmas Play for our Church

I am pretty sure that the next time I will have a breather will be sometime in January maybe!! lol

I am truly loving what I am doing and I am blessed that I get to minister to people in Scottsbluff, NE!

I have about an hour before a group of kids show up to practice for our Christmas play which is why I have some time to blog!

I am not sure why God picked me to do this job but I truly do love it! The other day I commented on one of the parents status on facebook and told her how thankful I am that she allows me to love on her little girl each week. To which this mom replied "Alyssa truly adores you and I just wanted to tell you that this week in school she had to write about 1o things she is thankful for and one of them was you."

I never would have thought first off that I would live in Nebraska and second that I would be so impacted by the children I minister to. It is truly an honor to be able to love on these kids like Jesus loves on me.

I am excited for what the future holds and I promise I will blog more in depth all the stuff on the list at the beginning of this blog! :) Maybe tomorrow I will have a little more time to sit and write! :)

Love you all and miss you tons! :)

I'm Still Here Part 2

This past Sunday we had our very first Kidz Rock Sunday and man did we have a blast!!! It was a lot of work to say the least and yes Satan tried to attack in big ways but guess what he didn't succeed! :) I planned the whole service and let me just say that I look up to senior pastors everywhere lol!

Eleven kids and I lead worship that morning and we had a blast!!! Here is Nolan singing Counting on God which is one of his favorite songs! :)They did such a great job and some of the adults even got into it with us! :)

This picture made me laugh because of my face expression lol! We where doing the hand jive from Grease to the Counting on God song! :) The kids seriously love this song! :)Here is another silly face picture seriously these make me giggle! :)This picture seriously blesses my heart!This is Benny and when I saw this picture it made my heart sing how precious!We had all the kids come down to the front to worship with us and it was so awesome to see them worship their Jesus not carrying who was watching!Another funny faced picture lolWe even had two boys and two girls do offering! :)

Cicoff (Key Off) was our special guest speaker and he did an amazing job!

He got the audience involved which was great! :)

He even juggled with swords which was amazing and scary!!!

And fire!!!

He cut this rope in half and was trying to get the kids to help him make it one again!!

The awesome thing was is with everything he did he had a biblical message to go with it that not only touched the lives of children but adults as well.

Then we had a time of prayer to ask Jesus into our hearts!

And what would a awesome Sunday be with out a pot luck!!! :)

Alyssa, Me, Bella, and Nikee!!

We also did a silent auction to raise money for Kidz Rock and God totally blessed it! :)

I like the back of our kidz rock shirts lol! :)

It was a great day and although it was a lot of work it was well worth it! :) I can't wait till our next one and the kids can't stop talking about it! :)

I'm Still Here Part 1

I know it's been a while, is anyone still out there lol! ;)

It has been a long while since my last post so I thought I would sit down for a minute or so and let you all in on what has been going on in my life for the last couple of weeks! :) This is going to come in parts because if I told you everything that has been going on I think it would be a little overwhelming for the both of us lol! :)

Three weeks ago a dear friend of mine and I painted my office!

This picture was taken when I very first got here. This is what my office looked like! :) Scary huh??

Then after two days of painting, two coats of primer, and two coats of paint on each wall my office now looks like this and I am in love! :)

My desk :)

The view from my office door!The view from my desk!!!

Isn't it just beautiful!! I mean come on did you see what it look like before???? Tyson and Tami have no clue who painted it before but man it was ugly and I seriously felt like I lived in a storage room. NOW however I actually have an office to call my own that I love working in! :) Praise you Jesus!!

Plus it was so awesome because the day I finished my office and got it all decorated I had an unexpected visitation from two of my kids in the ministry who's parents where having a hard time. The girl came into my office grabbed me and just broke down sobbing. It was truly such a blessing to have a warm and welcoming office for them to come into! :)

Then after we prayed I asked the kids if they wanted to play jenga to which they replied they had never played it before!!! So of course we had to play it and as you can see in the pictures I have a long counter type thing in my office and we where able to play on it! :)

Oh and as we where playing I told them that I had this game when I was little and I use to play it all the time with my brothers. To which the little boy who is 9 replied man this must be old.... Oh my gosh I almost peed my pants when he said that I was laughing so hard! :)

It is such a blessing to have my office all done and put together! :) I love my job!! :)

I know that this is something so silly but truly having an office that you love and enjoy being in is amazing! :)

Being Vulnerable is NOT Easy Part 2

So last nights post was hard and I could only get part out without totally braking down so.... here goes the rest!!!

Last night after I wrote my last post I had a great conversation with a great friend of mine. She is kind of going through similar things. As we talked I started to really begin to understand what I was feeling. I believe that for so long I have shoved down my feelings so now when I am trying to open the wounded and allow it to start healing I don't know how to allow them to come back up! She started asking me questions and one that she asked really struck me.

She asked "Jinny why do you think that God doesn't love you just the way you are?" Now this is not her exact words because I can't remember them exactly however this is basically what she asked! :) hehehe

As I sat and thought about it I begin to see that I view God as the same person my dad was. I think that God loves me and thinks of me just like my earthly daddy did. I feel like He can't love me because I don't look just the way He wants me to.

I can remember one time my dad telling me that if my mom was the size I was when they met he would have never dated her. That really has stuck with me and I feel like this is the main reason I don't think that any man would want to be with me just the way I am RIGHT NOW!

I know that my daddy loved me and that all he wanted was the best for me but when it came to my weight I felt like he was more of a judge then my dad. All I wanted was for him to tell me that I was beautiful just the way I was.

I look back at pictures and can remember the pain I was feeling at the exact moment the picture was. I remember thinking how fat I was and now when I look at them I think wow I looked good!

I know that if I am going through this I can't even imagine how many other young girls are going through this exact same thing right now! How can I reach them and tell them that they are worthy and that they are loved just the way they are.

I know that this is going to be a process not a quick fix but I am in it for the long haul! I want to see myself through God's eyes and know how He sees me not just in my mind but in my heart!

Being Vulnerable is NOT Easy

Okay so this post has been sloshing around in my brain for several days and I just have not wanted to actually sit down and write it!!

This post is not going to be easy for me but it is something that I have dealt with my whole life. I am the type of person who always wants everyone to like me and to think that I am perfect!! Although I know that I am not perfect I want people to think I am so that I don't disappoint them.

Even since I can remember I have always been very self conscious about my weight. I can remember my dad sitting me down before going to California to visit my cousins who are super thin and beautiful telling me that maybe next year I can look like them and that I just have to work really hard at it.

My weight was always a topic of conversation when my dad and I where together. It got to the point where I would not eat around him because he would always either give me a look like are you seriously eating that or he would actually say something. So it got to the point where I would not eat and then I would closet eat when I got home.

My heart is so heavy right now and it seriously hurts, I can't hold the tears or feelings back anymore.

I have always told myself that my self worth is based on my weight. I have been on every diet ever created and have never been fully successful. I look at myself in the mirror and think who truly loves me just the way I am. Will any guy ever want to be with me even though I am not a size 2.

I can barely see the computer screen right not because of the tears. The pain that is inside me is so fresh and real it is hard to even put on paper. I have tried stuffing down the pain, hurt, and sadness that comes from my weight.

Every time I meet someone new I think that the first thing they see is my weight and then I feel like they judge me because of it.

I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. But when it is hard for me to even look at myself and I hate pictures, it gets to the point where I just feel like I should give up. Climb in a hole and never come out. I try not to compare myself to people but it is really hard. I want to have her hair, her arms, her stomach, etc, etc, etc.

I want to look in the mirror and be able to not hate what I see. I want to feel like I have purpose and I don't want to hide behind my weight. I want to not just KNOW that I am worthy and beautiful, but I want to FEEL it.

I know that this is one step towards being healed which is why it is so hard for me to write or even talk about it.

I know that God has a plan and purpose for my life but I want to know it in my heart not just in my head.

Make a Difference Monday (Alyssa)

Monday is here again and as I was driving to work out today Klove reminded me that is was Make a Difference Monday! :) They where talking about a family named the Bains who have adopted 12 kids and now they have a TV show on A&E! They are a christian family who say that they want to help children understand that it is not their circumstances that define them but their relationship with God.

This week I want to share with you about a little girl in my ministry. Her name is Alyssa and she is 8 years old. A couple weeks ago I challenged all the kids in Kidz Church to bring a friend and if they did I would have a treat for them and their friend. Anyway to get kids to hear about Jesus love right! :) hehe

Alyssa and Abigale getting their treats! :)

The very next week Alyssa brought her friend Abigale and the following week she brought two new friends Hayley and Jasmine. After church that day Alyssa's Grandma who brings her and all her friends to church told me that Alyssa loves coming to kidz church and wants to bring more and more friends every week.Abigale, Me, and Alyssa

Although Alyssa may not realize what she is doing it amazes me that a little girl can have such a heart to bring her friends to church, and then God takes it from there and shows them His love.Me, Hayley (in the back), Alyssa (on my lap), and Jasmine

Saying good bye after kidz church! :)

I am so honored and blessed to get to minister to kids like this each week! :)

Another story I heard this week was of a three year old little girl who heard about people who had no food. So she decided to start asking friend and family to give her food so that she could help them and to this day she has helped hundreds of people.

Both of these stories just proves that we should not underestimate the power and mind of a child.

Now its your turn lets here your Make a Difference Monday story! :)