Friendships can be what we choose to put into them. I (Christina) have learned over the past 5 years that quality versus quantity of friendships is what is important for me. Back in high school it used to be about the quantity of friends because that showed popularity. The problem became that once I graduated from high school and moved away to go to college I no longer kept up with any of those friends because we didn't have the quality of friendship that we would make it over the distance. From my high school days I only keep in contact with a few and those were the people that I spent quality time getting to know and our friendship was on a deeper level. When I moved away or they moved away we had the strong desire to keep in contact with eachother in order to stay connected with eachothers lives. So, in college I changed my focus for friendships and started focusing more on quality than quantity and it has made a huge difference in the longevity of them. Granted I met a lot of people in college and don't keep up with them all, but the ones that I did put more energy into to get to know on a deeper level are the ones that I am still in contact with today. I am also grateful for new internet connecting sites like facebook that help me to stay in contact with many friends from both high school and college.
The reason I started thinking about this a lot was that Ben and I recently moved and in the 2 months since we left from Chicago we have already had 3 sets of our friends come to visit and we were invited to a beach house as well to meet up with former church friends. It is extremely touching to have people specifically plan and come to see us just to keep up the friendship. It is touching when people will not allow distance to stop them from being apart of your life. Moving from place to place is a natural part of life and God has called us to be faithful to follow wherever he is leading us. Moving can also be a scary and lonely journey in life, but when you have friends all around the world who are praying for you, calling you, writing you and making special trips to see you, you know that God is in those friendships and that those friendships are life-long friendships.
Since moving to Indiana Ben and I have met some new people who we know that overtime will develop into new friendships and we are excited for that. Only the Lord knows if we will be moving again, but I am more confident than ever that in that time we will not be losing any friends, but just expanding our network of friendships around the world.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
New School Year Has Begun!!
The new school year has begun, which means a lot of new beginnings for the Church Ministry. Ben has been working extremely hard to get the Children's department in good standing for the beginning of the year. Back in the middle of 
August he held a kick-off meeting for all of the volunteers in the children's ministry. The volunteers are involved in either sunday school, AWANA, or the Chinese school. Many of them are involved in multiple ministries, which is great. The kick-off training meeting was extremely successful. We had about 50-60 people in total and they were all excited and motivated for the new year. This years theme is being a piece in God's puzzle. We were challenged to consider the gifts that God has given each of us and how they will play out as we minister to kids. Ben has been encouraged since the meeting seeing the volunteers applying what they learned.
Last Sunday, August 31st, was promotion sunday. The Chinese Church has never had anyone to organize an event for it, so all they would do was have the kids go to their new classrooms. Ben wanted to change that tradition by having an actual ceremony for the kids prior to them moving up to their new classroom. It ended up being a great time and the parents loved it. Ben had each class come up in front of everyone and he talked about their specific class, then he had a picture taken of the entire class with the teachers and the parents of each of the kids. It was a special and momentous time. That is another project that Ben had been working on in order to start the year off with a bang.
AWANA also started this past Friday night. I (Christina) am working with the cubbies, which is the 3-4 year olds. We had a smaller group than normal, but they were a great group nontheless. I will be working with the same kids each week working on their verses and crafts. I also will be doing the puppet show each week that will correspond with the lesson. I had an interesting first week doing the puppets since I had never done them before. I practiced the script before hand, but when I got there that night I was told that I had to hide outside the door and the kids would yell for me to come in. That part went great, but what I wasn't told was that I would be hiding behind a chair. I came waltzing in with the puppet and was quickly told to duck behind a chair. I quickly dropped to the ground behind the chair trying to act as though that is how it was supposed to go. Good thing they are only 3-4 year olds. This next week should go much smoother.
As for the rest of our life outside of Church (which is not much these days) we are doing well. I currently have 3 days left of in-class training before I move on to the mentorship part of my training. I have spent one complete week with my mentor so far and it was great! I will spend my remaining 2 1/2 weeks with her, shadowing all that she does and will graduate on September 29th. Soo... the training portion is winding down and I must say that I am excited about that. Ben and I have also gotten to meet our neighbors in the past couple of weeks. We have some wonderful people living in our neighborhood. We are all in the same boat in the fact that we are new to the neighborhood and dont know anybody. We are all trying to be helpful and generous to eachother in our different needs. For example... we asked a neighbor to borrow their lawn mower and not only did they agree, but the very next morning the husband showed up at our house with it. We are thrilled with our neighborhood and look forward to building upon these new found friendships.
August he held a kick-off meeting for all of the volunteers in the children's ministry. The volunteers are involved in either sunday school, AWANA, or the Chinese school. Many of them are involved in multiple ministries, which is great. The kick-off training meeting was extremely successful. We had about 50-60 people in total and they were all excited and motivated for the new year. This years theme is being a piece in God's puzzle. We were challenged to consider the gifts that God has given each of us and how they will play out as we minister to kids. Ben has been encouraged since the meeting seeing the volunteers applying what they learned.
Last Sunday, August 31st, was promotion sunday. The Chinese Church has never had anyone to organize an event for it, so all they would do was have the kids go to their new classrooms. Ben wanted to change that tradition by having an actual ceremony for the kids prior to them moving up to their new classroom. It ended up being a great time and the parents loved it. Ben had each class come up in front of everyone and he talked about their specific class, then he had a picture taken of the entire class with the teachers and the parents of each of the kids. It was a special and momentous time. That is another project that Ben had been working on in order to start the year off with a bang.
AWANA also started this past Friday night. I (Christina) am working with the cubbies, which is the 3-4 year olds. We had a smaller group than normal, but they were a great group nontheless. I will be working with the same kids each week working on their verses and crafts. I also will be doing the puppet show each week that will correspond with the lesson. I had an interesting first week doing the puppets since I had never done them before. I practiced the script before hand, but when I got there that night I was told that I had to hide outside the door and the kids would yell for me to come in. That part went great, but what I wasn't told was that I would be hiding behind a chair. I came waltzing in with the puppet and was quickly told to duck behind a chair. I quickly dropped to the ground behind the chair trying to act as though that is how it was supposed to go. Good thing they are only 3-4 year olds. This next week should go much smoother.
As for the rest of our life outside of Church (which is not much these days) we are doing well. I currently have 3 days left of in-class training before I move on to the mentorship part of my training. I have spent one complete week with my mentor so far and it was great! I will spend my remaining 2 1/2 weeks with her, shadowing all that she does and will graduate on September 29th. Soo... the training portion is winding down and I must say that I am excited about that. Ben and I have also gotten to meet our neighbors in the past couple of weeks. We have some wonderful people living in our neighborhood. We are all in the same boat in the fact that we are new to the neighborhood and dont know anybody. We are all trying to be helpful and generous to eachother in our different needs. For example... we asked a neighbor to borrow their lawn mower and not only did they agree, but the very next morning the husband showed up at our house with it. We are thrilled with our neighborhood and look forward to building upon these new found friendships.
The Lord is doing great things in our lives each day, confirming that He had for us to come to Indiana. We are feeling more and more at home here in our neighborhood, job and church and are grateful to all those who have kept us in their prayers. We will try and post things more often as to not have each of our blogs be so long.
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