Youth Missions Week

Each year, our youth group participates in a week of missions projects around Natchez. This year, they visited Adams County Nursing Home on Monday. At the nursing home, they painted fingernails, played bingo, and talked with the residents. On Tuesday, the youth went to Kyle's house. At Kyle's House, they played games with kids, made several crafts, and painted a Parkway Student Ministry Sign on a section of their fence. This is the only day I have pictures from. On Wednesday, the youth went back to the area nursing homes to visit Parkway church members. It really meant a lot to the Parkway members to have 15 people (especially youth) show up and spend time with them. On Thursday, they helped with odd jobs around the church. Some of the boys fixed up the Rec Center, which houses the the children's room and the workout room. The girls helped the secretaries send out letters to the church members about our new paster, Jeff Brewer. Then they all went and helped a church member do a few things in her yard. It was an awesome week for everyone involved, and I look forward to next year's youth mission week!! 

The youth that got to paint the sign... Kent was also there, but had to leave early! 

Their painting on the fence! 

The bottom two pictures are of the youth making crafts with the kids. 

BYBC 2010

All I can say is WOW. I was talking to one of my parents/volunteers this weekend, and we both completely agree that this past week was the best week we've had. It was a wonderful experience for the kids, youth, and the adults that helped out. Here are a few pictures, so you can what a typical day at BYBC looks like! We had the BYBC in the church's backyard. We did this, so that we could have a few things inside to get the kids out of the heat for a little while. 

Each morning the girls started us off with a puppet show that displayed the theme of the way - Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. 

After the puppet show, Steve went through the wordless book with the kids. At the end of the week, the kids made a colors of faith bracelet, and were all given a wordless book to take home. This was by far, the most learned thing we did. At the end of the week, all of the kids could tell you about the colors, and what they meant. This is something we will continue to use to share the Gospel with kids. It's awesome! I recommend the wordless book resources for anyone and everyone!!! 

After our "morning meeting," we started rotations. We had bible study, games, crafts, and snacks. Here are a few pictures from that!! 

The older boys acting out part of the Bible Study- Jesus temped three times in the desert. 

Mrs. Suzy came to my rescue and lead Bible Study for the rest of the week. She is a wonderful teacher!! The kids all love her, and she can keep them all in line... as you can see!! 

Craft time... Mrs. Danielle is just wonderful all around. We had a lot of extra craft stuff from years past, and she took all of that and allowed the kids to make stuff from it! They loved it, it saved us money, and the kids thought is was all AWESOME!! 

On Monday, the kids told Mrs. Danielle they wanted to build a house......so on Thursday, Mrs. Danielle brought big boxes, and let them paint them. These boxes will be turned into a village in an unused Sunday School room in the preschool area. We will have several houses, a church, a school, stop signs, roads, ect. 

The youth boys are awesome! They showed up and did anything and everything we asked them to do. The hardest part of their was leading game time. They showed up early everyday and put together a game plan. ALLLLLLLL of the kids loved them- and so do I!! 

Snack time!! Always a good part of the day!!

My personal favorite part of the day was music time. The youth did an amazing job teaching the songs and motions, and getting the kids engaged in worship. I look forward to worship time at AWANA!!! 

Overall, it was WONDERFUL!! I look forward to AWANA starting next Wednesday. On SUnday, we will have our Back- to- AWANA celebration at the church. It starts at 5:30!1 We look forward to seeing everyone there!!!! 

Cheese Ravioli with Crawfish Cream Sauce

I decided to experiment a little more... Sorry no pictures, I forgot!!

Ingredients:

1 bag of cheese filled ravioli (unless you have a lot more time than I do, and you make yours homemade)

2-3 tbls of butter

2-3 tbls of garlic

1/2 lb of bacon (diced)

1/4 cup of chicken stock

1 cup of heavy cream

8 oz. cream cheese

8 oz. parmesan cheese

1 lb. peeled crawfish tail meat

1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

salt and pepper to taste

parsley for garnish


1. In a large pot, boil ravioli until pasta is al dente.

2. In a medium saucepan, saute garlic and bacon in butter until tender.

3. Add chicken stock to deglaze the pan.

4. Add cream and bring to a low boil, then add cream cheese and stir until all of the cream cheese has melted. (keep heat at medium)

5. Add 6 oz. of Parmesan cheese and stir until blended.

6. Fold in crawfish tails and red pepper. Add salt and pepper to taste.

7. In a small serving dish, lay ravioli out and pour sauce on top. Add parmesan cheese and parsley on top to garnish.

Serve with garlic bread and salad!

New Orleans Trip

This past week, a few brave adults and myself, brought 18 kids to NOLA. After playing around with a few things, I decided we would just go to the Aquarium. I had never gone to the Aquarium, so I was a little excited about it! It was a good trip and I would like to go back without 18 kids, so that I can actually see all of the exhibits!

Here are a few pictures I took from my iPhone (why yes, I did get rid of the crapberry (as I so affectionately called it, and moved up into the world and bought and iPhone : )) - because once again, I left my camera in my car, and drove to NOLA in my mother's van.... One day I will learn to keep the camera with me.

My group of girls in front of the fountain. 

Some of the group looking at the fountain.

My group posing for a picture. Poor Brandon joined another group,

 so that he wouldn't be the only boy. 

Brandon and Taneal each looking at some of the fish in the aquarium.

Corryn and Anna posing for a picture.

The girls looking at the fish.

The girls posing again- in front of one of the Amazon exhibits. 

Cole and Austin playing in the shark's mouth.

The girls posing inside of the shark's mouth.

Steve, Owen, and David checking out some fish. 

Part of the group posing on some rocks in the MS River Exhibit. 

Love and Josh posing in front of one of the large aquariums. 

Block Party

Once again, this is a little late, and my camera was MIA. *note to self- assign my camera to someone who remembers to use it on major event days*

A few summers ago, we decided to opt out of VBS. It was becoming a lot harder to recruit volunteers to make VBS work as it should, so we decided to go to other events. For a few years, we did a sports camp, and then two years ago, we went with Evangelistic Block Parties. About this time, we had a group go to New York on a mission trip. On that mission trip, the group did these types of Evangelist Block Parties in a park in Brooklyn. They worked well there, so we decided to try them out in Natchez. The idea of an Evangelistic Block Party is basically a portable one day VBS. The first year we tried this, we went to 2 different communities. Last year, we tried three. Two at two apartment complexes in our town, and one in the backyard of our church. They were all a huge success. One of the apartment complexes we went to was the same complex we went to the first year. A lot of the kids and parents we talked with were very excited to see us back and all asked if we would come back again next year (which was this year). So, we did. This year, I really wanted to focus on sharing the Gospel with the kids. So many times, it's easy to get caught up in the games, food, and crafts, and forget the real reason that we are doing the block party- to share the Gospel. For Bible Study, I looked a several different VBS themes and found GCF's The Race Is On.

I always like to do a craft that has something tangeble for the kids to bring home to remember the Bible Story. This year, one of our Sunday School teachers and WMU ladies, brought me an idea called Witnessing Dolls. Basically the dolls share the story of Salvation, using CEF's Wordless Book. For the block party, we decided there wasn't a way to have each child a doll, so I created a handout that worked as a doll on one side and had the colors of faith on the other. For the actual craft part, the kids made colors of faith bracelets using the different color beads.  You can click on witnessing dolls above for a link to witnessing dolls guide.

For recreation this year, I decided to use Centri- Kids' OMC!! It's really hard to explain. To see pictures of OMC in action, click on this OMC!!

We do these block parties on Sunday evenings. We basically move church to a different location for the evening. We had a good group show up to help. At the block party, we meet for 2 hours. In that 2 hours, the kids go to Bible Study, Crafts, Rec, and they are fed.  I try to have people to not only teach kids, but also teenagers and adults because you usually have a big number of those come, as well. For food, we usually do hot dogs, chips, lemondade, and popcorn- if I have someone to bring the popcorn popper. Even though we had a terrible rain storm come 10 minute before we were set to begin, we still had 50 kids come. It was a huge success, and we look forward to heading back there sometime soon!!

here are a few pictures I captured from my blackberry during dinner time.

Bro. Wayne holding a witnessing doll that his wife, Mrs. Cheryl,

 made to use as the example. 

Some of the crew gathered around the food table.

Some of the kiddos enjoying their hot dogs!

Our SUPER DUPER, WONDERFUL youth that came out to help (and volunteer to be creamed with shaving cream) with OMC!!

Some more of the kids enjoying their dinner in the bleachers. 

Natural Science Museum

Yes, I know this is a month late, but we had a lot of fun and I want to share!

In June, I took a group of 15 to the Natural Science Museum in Jackson, MS. It was so much fun!! The one thing I didn't really prepare for was the trails that you can walk behind the museum. I didn't really know they were there, so I didn't wear appropriate shoes to hike in. However, we still hiked through all of the trails, and had a great time! Hear are a few pictures from our little day trip! I took a lot more pictures, but they are on Danesha's camera because I left my camera on the van. These are not of the best quality because I took them on my blackberry.

Andrew, Gabe, and Love entertaining themselves on the van! 

My group of boys, Colby, Nak, and Love, in front of the alligators.

A group picture- not the best, but the closest we got!