Youth Scavenger Hunt

Tonight was the youth Scavenger Hunt. It was extremely fun. I had 5 high school girls in the mom mobile tonight. We had to drive all around town and take pictures of all these things they had listed on the piece of paper. For example, one was to take a picture of the group trying on clothes in either bealls or JCPenneys. Then get a picture of a security guard that worked at the mall, or go to Lowe's and get a picture of the group inside the portable buildings, or find a port-o-potty and take a picture of the group inside a the potty. Needless to say I have not laughed that hard in a long time. It brought back memories of when I was in the youth group and all the stupid but funny things we did.

There were 43 things on the list and we managed to make it back on time with having completed 34 things on the list. See my mom mobile can hit 90 miles an hour if the need arises and tonight the need arose. Now, I can also say that my mom mobile is smoking because litterly, when we got back to the church my van was seriously smoking. I think it was my breaks but we will find out tomorrow when we take it to the shop. Also, did I mention that instead of letting the group get a picture with her the mall security guard lady told us we had to leave the mall because we were being to loud and running too much. We explained what we were doing but she still felt the need to escort us to the exit. Oh, well.

By the way my group finished in 2nd place. See, I am still cool.

MY FRIDAY........

My Friday was a little more interesting than last Friday.

I slept until about 9am and then got up to drink my morning coffee and do my devotional out side on my front porch. I knew I had a few things to do today so I went ahead and got dressed and cleaned the house. We ate lunch with DW and then headed into town. Our first stop was to Angelina Eye Center to pick up my new Oakley sunshades. I have some special connections there so I was abl to get them for a discounted price. I then went from there to drop my middle child, Madison off to a friend where she was spending the night. The other two kids wanted to play at the waterpark so I decided to take them. I thought that would be a good time to begin reading a book I have been wanting to read. So I stop off at Corner Stone to pick up the book "Redeeming Love" to read. It is an 800 page fictional book but is a wonderful correlation of how God continues to love us no matter what we have done and where we have been. It is wonderful so far and have found my self crying through much of it. Ladies, if you have not read this book yet, I would recommend it highly.

So, we spent a few hours at the water park and I really enjoyed it. The kids played and I sat in the shade and actually got to read for several hours and didn't have the stress of a time schedule. Once the kids were ready to go, I changed them and then took them to get a snowcone from the snowcone place parked in the mall parking lot. We stayed and visited there for a while and then left to meet DW at home. We then went to Sam's to get things we need to go to Houston tomorrow. (We feed 500-600 homeless under the bridge by minute maid park). Then after Sam's we went to visit my sister in law in Huntington. This was meant to be a short visit but we ended up staying until 11pm. Thier nieghbors have puppies that they are giving away and so my husband and I had to fight off two crying children because they wanted to take home a puppy.( I know, I am such a mean mother,but I do not want another dog.)

Then on the way home, Madison calls crying wanting to come home because she does not want to spend the night. So we go pick her up and then head home.

We get home at 12am, throw kids into the bath, and then into the bed, and then, DW and I collapse into bed around 2am.

Wow! I didn't know how busy my day was until I go to type it up on my blog.

McKenzi's First Cabbage

Mckenzi's 3rd Grade class had a competition of who could grow the biggest cabbage..Now I am not a garden person at all so this was a challenge for both of us..

The winner of the largest cabbage also got to inter a nation wide competition that the winner of that one could win a $1,000 scholarship to college...So with 3 kids and knowing that we would need all the help we could get to put them through college we entered the contest...Again, let me remind you that I kill everything that I try to grow...

So with the help of DW Grandmother we worked really hard to grow her cabbage and get it as large as we could...

The time had come to pick the cabbage, wieght it and turn in the results...

Her cabbage wieghed 12.1 pounds...and as you can see it was very large...The results are not in yet on who one but whethe she wins or not she was very proud of herself for growing such a large cabbage and committing to something all the way through....

MY FRIDAY

Ok, this one is for Todd Wright....My Friday was not near as interesting as his...

Kids woke around 8am...I get up and check emails and return emails....

Feed the kids whatever we can find for breakfast because we are behind on buyin groceries...

Straighten house, make beds, pick things up and everyone gets dressed.....

Have lunch with DW and then after lunch we lay Mason down for a nap and gather all of our things to get ready for our lemonade sales.....We make 3 different flavors of lemonade...First pitcher is regular country time lemonade..2 pitcher is strawberry country time lemonade..and the 3pitcher is a new recipe we tried today..It is Wiler powdered peach tea mixed with Wilers lemonade...It was a hit and if you have not tried it you need to...It is great for a hot summer day.

Then we work the lemonade stand until 5:30pm and clean up in more ways than one...

After DW gets home from work I leave to go to the tanning bed, then I go up to my classroom to do a little work on curriculum etc....Cause, school starts back for me in 3 weeks...

After working in my classroom until 8pm then I come home load all the things we will need for our SPLAT ministries into the Mom mobile and then we eat supper and clean up.

We go out side to watch the kids swim in the pool for about an hour....Go in, get baths, get kids into bed and then I sit down to work more on curriculum with my lap top and discover that I have lost my jump drive that has a years worth of school curriculum on it....

We frantically start looking for it in the house, car, back at my classroom, back home and then again in the car and finally find it after an hour of blood, sweat, and lots of frantic tears...

Then I sit down to check emails one more time, read the Toddblog, and then decide to write this blog, just before I decide to turn in for the night.

Like I said not a very interesting day compared to some of you guys....

Abundant Life!?

What does it mean to have an abundant life? How do you have an abundant life when it seems as though things are not going right. How do you really acquire an abundant life? How do you keep an abundant life even when things are bad? I have heard many times "God came to give you life and to give it more abundantly" How do you attain that abundant life?

Any thoughts on this subject? I would really like to hear your opinions or maybe you have some scriptures to share on this subject.

What's your Story?

So I am watching the Home Run Derby last night with my husband. First of all, I am not a baseball person but I felt impressed to watch this with my husband while folding clothes. Then Josh Hamilton gets up to bat. This guy was on FIRE. He hit 28 homeruns in the first round!! Then my husband started telling me some of the things this guy has gone through. Let me list them for you.

1. Banned from baseball in 2004
2. Burning through $4 million dollar sign-on bonus
3. Gets addicted to drugs like meth and alcohol
4. Trys rehab 8 different times
5. Wife kicks him out of the house
6. Gets many tatoos, one of which is a picture of the devils face with flames all around it.
7. Hits an all time low
8. Enters rehab one more time
9. Makes a total change in his life including giving his life to Christ
10. Makes a mends with wife and children
11. Has an accountability partner that follows him around everywhere to keep him clean
12. Does Bible Studies with his accountability partner everyday.
13. Speaks to kids and teens all over the world about his story.
14. Gets back into baseball
15. Breaks new record in the history of Home Run Derby by hitting over 30 home runs.

Now, I know there are many athletes out there that have made a change in thier life just the same as he but for some reason this story really spoke to me, and it got me thinking.

Can God really use baseball to speak to people? Can God really take your past experiences and use them for His glory? Do we all have a past experience that we could be sharing with those around us?

The answer to all those questions above are yes. God can use anything to speak to people. God can definately free people from addictions and things that are keeping them in bondage.

So, what's your story? We all have one that we can share with others. It may not be addictions to drugs or alcohol. Maybe it's anger, or depression or money. Whatever it is God can definately free you from those things. Why does God choose to heal us from those things? Because he wants us to be another Josh Hamilton. He wants to release in us a home run hitter. HE wants us to tell others about what he has done in our lives and use to free other people from bondages. And then when we do that we are able to discover inside of us who we are and God's purpose for our life.

Josh even tells stories of how He had very demonic nightmares and how he knew that the devil was very much a part of his life. He even says that the reason he takes around an accountability partner is not because he needs to be babied but he knows that he could slip at anytime and he knows the devil is not very far away. How true that is for all of us. The devil sitting and waiting for us to slip up. Do you have someone that can keep you clean?

Just some of my thoughts. What are your thoughts about this whole thing?
You can read Josh Hamilton's story on www.sportsillustrated.cnn.com.

SPLAT Ministries

Today we had our Children's Ministry-SPLAT. We had hotdogs, chips, cookies, water, gatorade, and koolaide. We gave away 300 hotdogs to children and adults. We had many things for the kids to do. We had a memory verse game to play, we had waterguns we gave away to all the kids, waterballoons, and a huge water slide that we sprayed with water and baby shampoo to make it extremely slick. We also had face painting, sidewalk chalk, coloring etc. It was extremely hot but extremely rewarding. Many of these kids are unchurched and there were several who walked away being able to quote memory verses by memory. It was awesome. Attached are some pictures from today. We will be at Brandon park again next Saturday also. Hopefully, we will have many more kids to come out.

So Here Is My Day Today

So it is summer so my days aren't near as busy as they are during the school year but I thought I would enlighten you on my day for today.

First of all I get woke up by my 3 year old at about 8:30, he is hungry so I get up and get him something to eat and then I go lay back down. He comes back in my room a few minutes later wanting some juice so I get up and get juice for him and then go lay back down. He comes back in and wants to watch a movie so at this point I decide I need to get up even though I would love to sleep just 10 more minutes. I mean afterall, it is summer.

So, I get up and instruct all 5 kids that we have alot of errands to run so they need to get up and get dressed, brush teeth, and clean thier rooms.

By the way I have only 3 kids the extra 2 kids are my 2 nieces. They are here for the summer.

So, for those who don't know me well, I am a little OCD so I have to make sure that all beds are made, rooms are clean, toys picked up and in thier place, floors vaccuumed, dishes cleaned and kitchen wiped down along with the table, and the bathroom clean. So we work to make sure all of this is done before we leave the house.

So we will get dressed and leave to first go and meet my husband for lunch at 12, then after lunch we will take my 3 year old for a haircut, go to Lowe's to get somethings for our SPLAT outreach tomorrow at the park, and then to walmart to get "stuff".

Then I will meet a friend, Robin, in Brandon Park to hand out flyers for tomorrows ministry outreach. WE will go door to door and then leave some at 2 gas stations that allows us to post on the windows and leave at the counter.

Then back home to get ready for pictures. Pictures at 7pm and then probably dinner and then home to get kids ready for bed. By this point my son will be very grumpy because he will have not had a nap today.

So that is basically my day, not very interesting but never the less, thats me.

Who is Stephanie Crager?

I am a teacher at Harmony Christian School. I teach Pre-k 3- 8th grade Music and Drama. I am responsible for 2 large musicals per year along with solo & ensemble competitions. I also take my Choir to peform for many community events. We do puppet shows, drama skits, songs, sign language, banners, streamers, and black light shows. I am also the cheer coach at Harmony Christian School. I am also currently in the process of getting my Bachelors Degree in Children's Ministries with a specialization in Biblical Studies along with a minor in Music and Theatre Arts.

I have just recently started a new ministry called SPLAT Ministries. We go out to Brandon Park and minister to the kids in that area. We feed them lunch along with provide activities for the kids to do. We keep a list of all the names of kids that come to our outreach so that I can send birthday cards when it is time. We do this twice a month and I am hoping that as the ministry grows that we will be able to reach more kids and go into more parks, apartment buildings etc to minister to many kids. As of right now we have been able to minister to @ 60 kids so far since June.

What does SPLAT stand for?
S-Songs
P-Praise
L-Lessons
A-Activities
T-Teaching
We do all of these things with the kids along with bringing in puppet shows, object lessons, and Drama skits.

SPLAT Children's Ministries
Building a Faith that Sticks!

Please pray that God will continue to grow this ministry and bring more helpers so that we can reach more kids for the kingdom of God.