Almost done

Well...we are finishing up the last week of our first year as campus ministers. We have learned a lot and God has blessed us despite our mistakes. It has been a good year, but we are tired. We aren't used to the whole term thing yet. Our clocks felt like the activities should have ended a month ago.

Jason is especially feeling tired now. He is trying to finish up the school year while trying to prepare for a taking a class in Memphis which starts in two weeks. Working 50-60 hours a week and preparing for a Master's class is starting to take its toll and I know he is looking forward to July when he can finally take a break. If you have time say a prayer for God's strength to carry him through the next few weeks.

Here is a summary of what happened our first year in campus ministry.

Positive things that have happened this year are:
1) Our group grew from a core of 10 to a core group of 16. (Yeah God for working in the lives of our students to give them courage to invite their friends)
2) Jason was in 9 one-on-one Bible studies to help spiritually grow our core students. Some of student leaders were doing Bible studies as well bringing the total up to 16 students studying the Bible weekly.
2) Jason and I are studying with a girl who is thinking about becoming a Christian.
3) Jason has had weekly spiritual conversations with a student who claims to be an atheist and is starting to regularly hang around the UCC. (Satan has put some stumbling blocks in this students way. Pray this doesn't keep him from coming to know God)
4) God has blessed us with a solid, God focused, leadership team for next year.
5) We made it through the first year without any major catastrophes.

Things we don't want to repeat next year:
1) We had too many activities this year. Next year we hope to have less, but more focused activities.
2) Jason taught entirely too many classes on top of one-on-one Bible studies. He's training two students this summer to teach the Sunday morning class so he can have more time available for one-on-one Bible studies.
3) The church here wants to be more involved, so we are brainstorming ideas on to get them more connected with our ministry so we don't have to do so much work. :)

Right before the school year started, Jason and I began to realize the immensity of the task before us. Despite our incredible training, we realized that we just weren't completely prepared for our first year on our own. I went before a group of ladies at church and told them that we were scared about the year. I told them, if anything good comes out of this year, it will be because God did. As I look back on the year, I believe that statement held true. Despite our best efforts, a lot of mistakes were made. And all the growth that happened wasn't because we did anything special, it was because God was willing to use us despite us. It is good to know that we serve a God who doesn't expect us to be perfect, but obedient.

So we are excited about this summer. Excited to take a break. Excited about the brainstorming and preparation that we will be doing for next year. And though we may be a little more wiser next year ,I think I can still honestly say that, despite our best efforts, it will be God that brings about the growth.

Camping

I must apologize at the very beginning, but we did not take a single picture while camping. I guess we were having so much fun relaxing that it never occurred to us get the camera out. So you will just have to survive with a verbal summary.

The campsite was beautiful. We were situated in a large meadow with some really cool hardwood trees (I don't know what kind). A shallow river ran by our site. Josiah enjoyed sitting on the bank and throwing rocks into the the river and watching the water splash. He also enjoyed playing with Hank and Syd, his two favorite dogs. He did really well and we only had two or three disciplinary issues the entire three days. For the most part everyone had a fun and relaxing time. The weather was amazing. We couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

Jason's arm is pretty much healed, though his body is still recovering from the effects of all the drugs he took. We are trying to feed him some mild foods (he feels nauseated a lot) and making sure he gets lots of rest. Hopefully he feels better soon.

An Exciting Week

We have had an exciting week at the Swick residence. Monday at lunch Jason was stung by a bee. We've known from past experiences that Jason is allergic so we watched him closely for signs of any respiratory problems and other than a large swelling spot on his arm he seemed fine. The next day we woke up and found that his arm had swelled up to elbow. We went to the doctor to see what we should about it. The doctor wasn't too concerned until he noticed Jason had a red streak heading up his arm. Immediately the doctor put him on steroids and antibiotics and told if it got worse to come back in. We woke up the next morning and it was worse. We went back to the doctor and she put him on all sorts of antihistamines. Below is a picture of how many pills Jason had to take this morning.

It may look like a lot, but the swelling went down and poison site looks better. Thank God for modern medicine.

We also did some more work in the garden. Below shows what grew out of the seeds I planted. Most everything but the bell peppers and half a row of beans and the lettuce came up. Not bad for my first try.

My peas and half row of beans

Radishes

Yellow summer squash

We had a coupon for free vegetable starters so we went to the store yesterday and bought some lettuce and broccoli. Here is how the garden looks with everything planted.

Peas, Beans, & Lettuce

Radishes, Broccoli, and Carrots (when they come up)

We also received a hand me down swing set from a family from church. We got it set up and here is a picture of Josiah and I swinging on it.

We are headed off camping with the college students this weekend. Should be a lot of fun to get a way for a few days. Hopefully we will have some fun pictures to share next week from that.

Happy Mother's Day

This a bit late, but I have been out of town most of the week, but I thought I would share a story from Mother's Day.

For Mother's Day Jason and I made plans for the family to take a hike after church. I woke up early Sunday morning, took a shower, got dressed, and packed provisions for the hike before Josiah woke up. I was so proud of myself for being organized.

Then Josiah woke up.

I picked him up out a his bed and changed his diaper and dressed him. While I was dressing him I was trying to explain to him it was Mommy's Day. "Josiah can you say Happy Mommy's Day?"

He smiled at me and said, "Josiah's Day!"
"No baby. It is Mommy's Day. Your day is in July."
"Josiah's Day!"

I gave up asking him to say Mommy's day and I took him out to the kitchen to make him breakfast only to find the bagels were moldy. "No problem," I said to myself. "Because I already have our stuff together we will just run down to the store and grab breakfast before church." As I was grabbing the bags to take out to the car I noticed Josiah playing with my keys. That's okay", I thought, "I'll get them from him when I come back in." By the time I came back Josiah didn't have them anymore. I asked them where they were and he ran down the hall to his room and shut his door. I walked in and asked again and he just giggled. "Great, now I can't find my keys." I looked for 10 minutes before I gave up. I grabbed the extra set of keys and went back into Josiah's room to take him out to the car. When I walked in I noticed he was naked and playing with his toys. I looked at the clock and noticed that by the time I got him dressed again we wouldn't have time to run by the store before Bible class. I walked back out and scrounged around for some food that would make a good breakfast while riding in a car. I managed to find a lost granola bar and cut up some apples.

I walked back down the hall and noticed he was in the bathroom. I was praying that he had decided to try to use the potty since he was naked but considering how the morning was going I wasn't hopeful. As I turned the corner my suspicions were confirmed. Josiah was standing in a long string of toilet paper that he had unraveled and was tearing it into pieces and putting it in the toilet. When he saw me he knew he was in trouble and jumped and screamed. I scolded him because he knew he is not allowed to play with the toilet paper. He helped me pick it up. When it was done I told him it was time to get dressed and Josiah took off down the hall to the living room giggling.

I finally cornered him in the living room. As I scooped up my wiggly giggly son, I sighed and said to myself,"Happy Mother's Day, Amanda."

So Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers who have gave up their sanity to raising kids, and given the chance, would do again.

P.S. By the way...Josiah made it to Bible class fed and on time and we had a wonderful hike after church.

How to use a dump truck and a fun video

When Jason's parents were here, Chuck bought Josiah a big dump truck. While it was meant to be an outdoor toy the weather hasn't been consistent enough to take it outside yet. Josiah has come up with creative ways to use his dump truck.

One evening I told him it would make Daddy very happy if we cleaned up all the toys before he got home. Josiah decided to he would help by put by putting all his toys in his dump truck.

All his loot.

Josiah also decided that a dump truck is a good place to read a book.

Josiah has always liked music. Now he has new appreciation for it because he can actually understand the words and try to sing along. Here is a video of his new favorite song. At the end of the video he is distracted because he found McQueen.

Wasting time

I should be exercising or cleaning the house right now, but cloudy, rainy weather makes it difficult for me to be motivated to do anything besides take a nap. I decided that I could make myself feel better about being lazy by posting on the blogspot.

Spring has finally started to come. It seems like it took awhile, but we had a couple of weeks of sun. A few of those days it was even in the upper 80's (too hot). While the weather was nice we got out and did some yard work. I decided to try my hand at growing a vegetable garden. Jason and I made some garden beds and Josiah helped me plant seeds. Here are some pictures of Josiah and I planting the garden.

Josiah and I measuring where the rows should go.

Planting peas

Josiah was trying to help me cover the seeds, but he was being a little rough. He ended relocating the seeds instead of covering them. Here I am trying to teach him to be gentle with the dirt.

While the rain can be depressing at times, I am grateful for it because that means I don't have to water the lawn. We replanted the backyard almost a month ago and we have to keep the soil moist all the time for the grass to establish. It is nice to have mother nature take care of that for me for a couple of days. Helps on the water bill.

Josiah and the smoothie

One of Josiah's favorite foods are smoothies. Normally he drinks his smoothie from a straw, but today we accidentally made the smoothie too thick. He decided taking the lid off was easier. Here are the picture to show why Josiah should always drink a smoothie from a straw.