This the power of the cross...

September has flown by. The air now has a crisp to it, the leaves are brilliantly changing, and the days are getting shorter one by one. Josh and I are staying busy between his work in the welcome center and the dorm, my work at Kiddie Kampus, ministries at church, and so forth. We're enjoying life though. It's great to be married to the one God planned for you and to be living a life together led by Him!

Now onto what the title of this post hints to...

All week at Kiddie Kampus I have been teaching the Bible lessons. The lessons for the week have all had a theme of prayer. Monday was about Jonah praying in the whale to confess his sins, yesterday was about Nehemiah praying for help to rebuild the wall, and today was about how Jesus prayed for Himself and others. So I'm going through the story and the kids are listening (most of them anyways!) and one thoughtful question that was asked was, "Why did Jesus have to pray when He is the one we pray to?" What a thought for a 3 year old, eh? Then we get to one of the flashcards from the story that shows a picture of Jesus and above him are three thought bubble type things with pictures in each. One had a picture of the disciples, one had a picture of people of today, and one had a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross. They were each picturing times when Jesus prayed or things He prayed for. We get through the lesson and after Bible time is snack time so half of the kids are sent to go wash the hands in preparation for snack. While the kids are back washing their hands I look through the flashcard pictures from the story once again with some of the remaining kids. As we are looking one boy asks if we can go back and look at the picture of the cross. So we look at that picture and this little boy is enthralled with this picture. He asked, "Why is he on that cross? Why is there blood on him? Why doesn't he have clothes on? Why are those nails in him?" I proceeded to answer his questions as simply and lovingly as I could. I explained to him that Jesus had to die on the cross so that we could go to Heaven one day and be with Him and how the people took his clothes from Him and the nails were there to hold Him up on the cross and He bled because it hurt a lot. He continued to stare at the picture of Jesus on the cross and I could just see the emotion and questions flowing across his face. Well the time then came for the rest of the kids to go wash their hands and I headed back to the sink with them all. Back at the sink this little boy was still thinking about the cross picture. He said, "I don't want to go on a cross like that." To which I replied that we don't have to go on a cross because Jesus did it for us. After thinking about that for a moment he asked, "So how do we get up to Heaven?" I first replied by saying how we have to tell Jesus we are sorry for the bad things we have done and we have to believe on Him. To which He interrupted me by asking, "How do we GET up there?" I told him Jesus will come back and bring us up through the clouds. He thought about that for a minute and replied, "Ok, but I'm scared to do that." I said it won't be scary because we will be with Jesus. With simple trust he said, "Okay."

That right there is why I love my job. I truly pray that this little 3 year old boy will continue to have questions and a desire to know about the cross.

"This, the pow'r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross."

These are the moments..

Let me just start by saying, it's been a busy past few days. With Josh attending meetings and assorted dorm sup functions for hours every day, and me jumping right in and working around 7 hours daily with 3 year olds, it's rather astounding we are both still faring reasonably well.

We were able to sneak some fun in this weekend though. Saturday found us at the Dodge County Fair with Jenny and Matt. It was an, eh, interesting experience.

• It was raining for most of the time we were there. So we walked around through puddles with our hoods up.
• We almost got trampled by a runaway sheep in one tent and a runaway pig in another. The man watching as the pig comes barreling towards us merely says, "Um, girls looks like you have a loose pig."
• Finally, the part I most look forward to at fairs: walking around the exibiters booths and collecting free stuff. :) But alas, I aquired but two items: a plastic 11-12 week fetal baby from the Pro-Life booth, and a CD of Christian songs from around the world from the Lutheran Ministries booth. Definitely not the bagfuls of free stuff I recall scavenging while walking around fairs in my youth.
• Last but not least, I experienced one of the hick-est events thus far in my life. A true Beaver Dam, WI horse pull. We cheered for Hoppercorn. Our cheering helped little though. The winning pair of horses ended with pulling a load of a whopping 6,600 pounds. "You bet!"

Then on Sunday, after church we stayed and ate lunch with the Pastor's family. It was a nice time of fellowship. Oh, and Sunday night we talked to the Pastor and Deacon's about joining the church. So grateful, God led us to Faith Baptist Church in Oconomowoc. We are definitely excited to get involved in the ministries of the church.

Last night I met with the fellow dorm sup wives in one of their apartments and we made cookies "for the arriving guys." I don't know how many cookies actually made it through to be given away to guys though. :) It was a fun bonding time to be sure.

Work at Kiddie Kampus has been going well. The fellow teacher I'm with and I have gotten along wonderfully. Definitely an answered prayer! I've already fallen in love with the 3 year olds we have. They are definitely a crazy bunch, but also so precious. Next Monday all of the kids will be back from the summer (20 total!) and we will start the curriculum. I'm looking forward to it being a little more structured. Week number one is about colors and back to school! That week is then followed by teaching about shapes and 'God made me!' :) And the cute story of the day is this: This afternoon while playing out on the playground a couple of the kids were making pretend meals and we were all sitting around the table eating. Before starting to eat the pretend meal, I mentioned how we should pray first. I then proceeded to pray a simple prayer thanking Jesus for the food. The ext meal they made, the boy playing said he would pray. He then proceeded to pray a rote food blessing prayer. The NEXT meal they made, the girl playing said she would pray (*note:this girl comes from a very rough background). She prayed the following, "Dear Jesus, Thank you for the food. Thank you for playing. Amen." So precious. I melted. :)

My husband is free from all meetings/guys/dorm related stuff for approximately 3 hours and 17 minutes. So I'm off to make sure not another of those minutes are wasted. :)

The Daily Grind

I just met our first pre-season dorm resident. Of course, he came early and Josh was not back yet. I think I might have been a bit scared to be greeted at the dorm by me - a female. :) Starting today the pre-season guys will start trickling in. Then Monday the RAs arrive. Then RLs. Then Freshmen. Then the returning students. It's kin of crazy that it's all starting! We are for real living in a men's dorm as dorm supervisors! Josh has had hours of meetings all week, and I do believe his brain is fried. But things will settle down after these beginning weeks are over.

As for me, I started work at Kiddie Kampus on Monday. Let me just say, there's nothing like being thrown right into things! I started Monday without having gone through orientation or training. Plus, the lead teacher was gone until Tuesday. Needless to say, the first day was a little stressful. I hate not knowing what I'm supposed to do in a job. But the last couple days went a lot better. I really like the other teacher I'll be working with and the kids are great. I'm working in the 3 year old room and I've already fell in love with the little cuties. :) I love hearing them say, "Mrs. Annie, Mrs. Annie!" :)

Another fun thing that happened as of late was a trip last weekend to Illinois. We were able to drive down on Friday evening and spend a couple days with Pastor Caleb and Ms. Jess and their family. It was awesome to get away for a couple days. We really love that family as well as the awesome church family we have gotten to know down there over the past couple years. We are definitely hoping and looking forward to being able to visit down there every now and then.

Well, lunch is now beckoning. :)