Advent Conspiracy Promo Video

Saw this on facebook, then Alaina posted it.

I'm not alright (updated) OK'd in christ

This is the video that Murphy and Co. made for the Friday night portion of Ok'd.

Side note: Jessie's (jessie is "girl") grandma (lil mama), watched the video and said, "I just want to hug her! I don't like unhappy endings!"

One

Ok'd is over. I'm sad, but also relieved.

I have to say that this year's ok'd was pretty different and all of us on the theme team were nervous because the old tried and true method worked pretty well.

This year's theme was "ONE", based on the verse, "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world." Our planning team also read the book, "Hurt," by Chap Clark and were quite convicted by the information that we found there.

Those two things in mind shaped heavily what we wanted the focus to be.

Friday night, the mini-theme was "one versus the world: why me?" The first activity that we had the youth do were prayer stations. They made cards for needy families, but we also had 4 big murals that said, "In this world we'll have trouble" (with a globe that I painted). We asked them to write something that they were struggling with or to post a newspaper article of things that were going on in the world.

I was amazed at the things the kids wrote on the murals. Some were pretty obvious, (friends, parents, etc), but others were a little more eye-opening (a girl wrote, the secret pain of having two miscarriages," and many, many people wrote that they were fighting depression, and were failing at living up to their parents' expectations). We also had them fill out a survey so that we could get the "pulse" of the youth who attend ok'd. There were some interesting responses.

After the prayer stations, our speaker, Micah Parker opened up family time bible study and the youth walked through the story of Joseph. After family time, Micah talked about "adversity trust" and told us the story about the relationship with his first wife Corinne, who died in her late 20's. It was so, so very timely for the Messiah kids because what they have experienced in September with the death of Darren. Friday night closed with the reminder of Christ's love for the youth.

Saturday Morning's theme was "the ONE vs. the World: Why him?" focusing on how Christ has gone through what we have gone through and because of that, we have someone who understands us. And the fact that we have a God who was willing to become man for us, to struggle with our struggles is a strong reminder of his love for us. Micah talked again and we did a more in depth Bible study based on Joseph's life in Egypt.

Servant events that afternoon took place all over the city of Tulsa. Messiah Youth went to Lutheran Church of Our Savior and made Swahili Braille Bibles, which was really cool. Other groups made "panda packs" and the communion bread for that evening's worship service with communion.

After servant events groups had time for dinner before Worship. The theme for worship was, "One with Christ," and addressed the fact that even though there are struggles, we are united with One who has conquered those strugggles. After worship the youth came back and we had gone to the prayer station murals and painted crosses over their stresses, concerns and newspaper clippings and completed the verse, "take heart, I have overcome the world." Micah talked about "Why bad things happen" and how God can use those bad things and use them for good, but also how God can use you in the midst of your troubles. We had more family time, in which the kids completed the story of Joseph and talked about how God has used them for good in times of stress and trouble.

Sunday Morning the theme was, "One body," and we talked about how we are not alone as we thought, but that we are united together in Christ. Micah talked about Gideon and how God used his small army to defeat the midianites and how God can use us (the small) to defeat the things that are going on. He also showed a video clip of Veggie Tales, which was awesome.

It was a great weekend. The message, I think was timely for my youth, but also many, many other youth who have been feeling lost, alone, at sea in their overscheduled, stress filled lives. I was glad that the gospel message was preached again and again that Jesus, our great comforter, has conquered everything in their life.

Illinois Tuesday. Yay!

Oy

I feel like if I say too much, I will spew hot venomous word vomit on this blog. I could rant about several things, but instead, I will look to the positive and talk about good stuff that's coming up.

1. Ok'd is this weekend! I am really excited to see how all the hard work turns out. I can't wait! This year, the most excellent DCE Suzanne organized the servant events (with which I helped minimally), Heath and I wrote the drama (and one of my youth made the video), Nikki and I wrote the Bible studies, planned the prayer stations and had big components of the theme development for the theme of "one."
2. I'm driving to Illinois for Thanksgiving on Tuesday! Yippee! Home coooking, progressive rummy, family and rock band. I also hope to see "Twilight" with the sister, hang out with my recently (as in march) engaged cousin Lynn as well as spend time with the fantastic Jenny P. Also, guess who else is going to be around in So. Ill the same time I will? Go ahead, Guess?! Ok, I'm not going to tell you, but it's very, very interesting. I'll leave it at that.
3. I wrote my second full length article for Youthesource based on "Ministry Teams: The good, the bad, the ugly". I think it gets "published" in the beginning of December.
4. Youth Quake in February. I know not everyone enjoys a weekend spent in a hotel with 500 middle school youth, BUT, this year, we have the potential of taking a really big group, which I think will be a LOT a LOT of fun. Or, you know, end up being sent to a funny farm when it's all over.
5. Advent. It's soon. I can't wait. I've been enjoying my new Christmas-esque album from Andrew Peterson, "Behold the Lamb of God: The tall, true tale of the coming of Christ."
6. Last night's confirmation board game, "journey to the promised land" game went extremely well other than the kids who didn't listen to directions and I had to explain it SEVEN times--(directions: flip the coin, move two if heads, one if tails, do what the space says and read the bible verse).
7. Ok, work is calling me, but I figured that this would get Moose-tipping off my back.

Refrigerator Door 2

So, Bethany gave me this idea as a way to teach the Exodus in a week. I'm pretty proud of the end result. :) It's the "Journey to the Promised Land!" Game.

Abandonment

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/14/nebraska.safe.haven/index.html

I don't know if you've heard about what's going on in Nebraska these days, but here's a short intro:

Nebraska passed a safe haven law that didn't include any age restrictions. About a month ago, a widowed father dropped off 10 of his 11 children saying, "I just can't raise them anymore on my own." The children ranged in age from 1-17.

Since then, as Nebraska law makers have tried to re-write the law in a way that specifies that only INFANTS (up to 30 days) fall under safe haven laws, 34 children (all over the age of 10), have been dropped off at Nebrasak hospitals. Many of these teens are from single parent homes and many of them suffer from mental illness that their parents were unable to get treatment for. Some have been flown in from places such as Florida, and Georgia.On the news last night, one of the nurses at the hospital was quoted saying that the teens were often left crying out, "I promise I'll be better! I promise I'll try! Please love me! Please don't leave me!"

The situation, no matter how you look at it, is heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking for the children who have been abandoned, who have been essentially told, "I can't take care of you," or "I don't love you." It is heartbreaking that families can't get care for their children and feel like abandoning them is the only choice that they have.

As I have watched, I have observed several things, and have more questions that I want your opinion on.

Has the media helped the situation by alerting the nation to the failings of the mental health system or have they made it worse by making it national knowledge that you can "safe haven" your teenager enabling children from other states to be dropped off?

Where's the root of the failure? Is it the law that didn't specify age? Is it the family that abandons the child? Is it government who didn't provide appropriate care for these children in a timely manner? Is it the parent who didn't know how to properly parent the teen when it was younger? Is it society who abandoned the family so that it felt that it had no options?

Please, leave some comments.

Well...

That was unexpected.

Thought to Ponder

"Or were the nails and the spear in my side
not quite enough to provide,
the victory you need in your life?"
Jill Paquette-"Come to Me" (good luck finding that song on itunes)

ahhhh.

So, back in Senior Year of college, SAC or SLO (pronounced-"SACK" and "SLOW" not the individual letters for you non-concordians) handed out these free music sampler CD's in our back to school packs. It was red and white striped and promised to have the "Best new christian artists!"

To be honest, I don't remember there being a lot of GOOD music on the CD. However, the one gem on the album was Jill Paquette's song, "Come to Me" which I discovered AFTER leaving Concordia. The CD got its' wear during internship.

Unfortunately, that CD (and all my others) got stolen and as is the case with most of the bands on that CD, I couldn't find that song anywhere! That is, until the spode brought her laptop to Alaska and it was on her itunes playlist.

Well, the song is back in my music library as of Friday and has been on repeat ever since then...

Ahhhh...

The Refrigerator Door...

Looky! Read the Article Here!

Pride.

History in the making last night.

Obama-Biden.

3 Cheers for America.

Youth Led and Other Various Updates

Soooo, I've got a post sitting on my dashboard (of blogger, not my car) that I've been working on but that will have to wait for a while before I post it.

Below is the video my youth made for their youth service. They did an awesome job. The camera-man didn't do so bad either (hint hint, that was me):).

The video is based on the "Ragman" parable. In our video, Jesus exchanges mourning for comfort, uncertainty for security and addiction for healing. The girl following Jesus then is able to comfort another friend.

Anyway, watch it. I hope you like it!

Youth Led Video-Give Me Your Eyes