Yes: Finally I am back on my blog. It has been an extra busy 2 months and the blog is low on my to-do list. Let me fill you all in. Steve and I took an 8 week course on urban church planting from World Impact's Urban Ministry Institute. It involved the reading of 3 books, weekly memorizing of Scripture verses, weekly quizzes, a ministry project, a paper and a final exam. I went into it telling the course facilitator that I would audit the course though he did his best to persuade me to take it for credit. I won. The week of the final exam and the paper being due was the week of my end of year school concert. The concert was on a friday and following monday I left for Florida to attend a week-long clinic for Kid's EE (Evangelism Explosion), which also required memorizing of verses and materials ahead of time. Too much memorizing for this old brain. I actually did pretty well in both things: I took and passed all the quizzes, I did the memorizing, and I did the ministry project. I passed my EE course and am now qualified to teach Kid's EE and to train others to teach it as well. Pretty cool.

Since I returned from Florida I have been busy as well. We had the end of school this week as well as an overnighter for some of our King's Kids saturday Bible club group. I cooked and cleaned all week as we hosted a neighborhood Bible study on Wednesday, I had all my music classes come to my house on Thursday for a snack and end of year singing, and hosted a luncheon for all the staff and teachers on Friday. As soon as we cleaned up the luncheon we made a quick trip to the store for the King's Kids sleepover and made it back in time to welcome the first of the kids. I don't think I want to cook again for about a week!

The sleepover was a good time had by all! It is always a learning experience to have the kids in that type of setting because we see more of who they really are when they are not trying to make an impression. We start out with pizza for dinner followed by a trip to the local park. The most notable thing is how the other children at the playground react to us. When they see adults who are actually playing with children, they flock to us. One little girl was in a swing last night and couldn't get down. I saw her sobbing and realized she had no one to help. Probably a sibling put her in and left her. I went over, found out her mom wasn't there, and told her I was a grandma and I would get her out of the swing. At that she replied "Could you by MY grandma?" Newark will break your heart with love if you allow God to work in your heart. Pray for Samia as we hope to visit the playground again this summer armed with songs and Bible stories.

Next Saturday is our final King's Kids event. Every year we take them to a suburban park that has lake swimming and paddle-boating for a picnic. It is a favorite event. Keep us in prayer.

We are so blessed to be living here in Newark and thank God He is willing to use us here.
Thanks for reading to the end of this missive.