March and April Madness

Today is the first day in at least 6 weeks that I haven't had some enormous impending project or event hanging over my head...and I feel great!!! I even dusted all my ceiling fans this morning! And now that Jadon is down for his nap, I might as well catch up on blogging since it's one of many items on my catch-up to-do list.

*Sleep training has officially become a success. Jadon "easily" falls asleep by himself every nap and night, minus a few crazy days.

He still insists, however, that we leave his and our bedroom doors open a crack, a sad reminder to me of when we had to "lock" him in his bedroom those two times. It hurts me that we scarred him in this way, and I wish I could've figured out another way to do it. Several times since then he has accidentally closed the door on himself at the doctor's office and other random public places, and it always ends up with him in hysterical tears, sobbing in my arms that "you locked me!" *sigh*
However, one of the good things that has stuck with him from that same traumatic period is that Jesus is with him "in his heart." Maybe not theologically correct, yet, but I love that he's thinking that way. Now, whenever he sees anyone sad or lonely for any reason, whether at the store or in a movie or at church or at the park or wherever, he will either tell them or me, "It's okay, Jesus in your heart." It is SO cute. I love that in his own way, Jadon is already telling people about Jesus! On our GOAL mission trip with the youth group, we watched Wreck It Ralph one night, and when Ralph was sad and lonely, Jadon yelled it out to him. Our teenagers thought it was hilarious. We are starting to tell Jadon that not everyone does have Jesus in their heart, but are treading lightly on that theological detail. :)

*Sarah and Greg's visit!
One of the most exciting parts of March was the arrival of my sister and her husband for a 2 week visit. It was so amazing to see her growing baby bump and to be able to include them in a ton of our family festivities. We all were crazy busy, but it was such a blessing to be with them.

*Passover
Within days of Sarah and Greg's arrival, we celebrated Passover. I can't remember if this was our 5th or 6th year in a row hosting it, but this year we had another 75 people celebrate a Passover Seder dinner with us at church the Thursday before Easter. It is such a great way to enter the Good Friday/Resurrection Sunday weekend, observing the "Last Supper" the way Jesus did with his disciples. The traditions Jews have been following for years are so rich with symbolism pointing to Jesus, it just puts a smile on my face to go through them, and I love being able to share them with others. This year, as always, was stressful and hectic and exhausting, but it was my most enjoyable one yet, thanks to delegating more of the food prep to friends and the leading of the Seder to my sister and Greg.

(Setting up for 100 people, using all the table cloths and dishes from my sister's wedding)

 Greg and Sarah explaining the significance of Passover

 We grew Jadon's hair for this event ;)

 Fallon lights the candles at our table, using a napkin and a sweater as a makeshift scarf :), while Pastor Hal and Amy encourage her

 My sister prepares to say the blessing over the lighted candles. Her Hebrew is so great! I am so proud of her!

 Jadon did great, but he could only take so much of the sitting down...and the curls

 Probably my favorite part is bringing all the kids up to "experience" the 10 plagues. They got to throw "lice" confetti on the adults, stick sticker "boils" on them, throw pompom "hail" at them, and wear sunglasses for the darkness, among other things...We thought it wise to skip the 10th plague, however. How do you make "death of the firstborn" fun?

 And then there was the cleanup...Ugh!

*Easter
Of course, when your husband is a pastor, Easter is inevitably a busy, hectic time of year. We had an early Easter service/kids' carnival on Wednesday night, the Seder dinner on Thursday night, an Easter party with my MOPS group on Friday morning, Good Friday service on Friday night, Easter service on Saturday night, and three services on Sunday.
THEN we finally got to do the family stuff Sunday afternoon and evening.
Jadon is definitely getting to a fun age with holiday traditions...and it was even more fun to have my sister and Greg join in on the festivities.
In Jadon's Easter basket, among other things he (and Jim) got awesome remote controlled cars that twist and spin and light up...and rarely get stuck. So.much.fun!

Jadon also got a pretty awesome basketball bunny. Unlike 98% of humans who go for the ears first, Jadon went for the nose...the basketball...the tail...the feet...and THEN the ears. He was pretty stoked to get so much candy, but was surprisingly disciplined. After a few bites of the chocolate, he'd give it back to me to save until later. He definitely doesn't take after his mama on that!

 I know Easter egg hunts come from pagan fertility rituals...but Jadon loves looking for treasures, so we did one anyway. As he gets older, I'll try to weave in the story of Jesus better, but for this year, I just filled the eggs with candy and cars and coins...and playdoh. Jim and Sarah and Greg got in on the action, too, and it was so cute to see Jadon trying to help them and share with them as much as they were trying to help him. It made me really happy to see that Jadon wasn't at all greedy. After a few eggs he was content...and couldn't wait to get to the treats inside!

After all this fun, my parents cooked an amazing prime rib roast dinner. I think this was my favorite adult Easter so far, and it gave me hope that in spite of being in ministry, we can still carve out time for our own family traditions. 

It was also exciting to see Jadon just starting to get the concept of Jesus dying on the cross for him. We bought two simple books telling the story and read them almost every night in March, and Jadon totally seemed to connect when I explained the pictures of the "mean" men who were "pushing" and "hitting" Jesus. He still doesn't seem to comprehend death...or crucifixion for that matter!...but now, every time he sees a cross anywhere, he says, "That's where Jesus born!" Not quite...but that's what Jesus was born for, after all!

*Sarah's shower

The weekend after Easter, I cohosted a baby shower for my sister up in Orange County with her dear friend Janna. We spent the morning at Sarah's messianic fellowship Adat HaMashiach, where Jadon got to try out Israeli dance worship and Greg gave the sermon. 

Then we had a fun time celebrating Wee Williams. Sarah has a ton of wonderful friends who came and showered her with love, but I was especially grateful for my friend Kristen coming up from Oceanside.

*GOAL Missions Trip

Before the dishes were all washed and put away from the Seder and Easter and shower, it was time to gear up for our annual youth missions trip. For the past several years we have forgone trips to Mexico in exchange for a trip with more tangible and long-lasting impact to our military base next door, Camp Pendleton. Without a language barrier and long distance, our teens are able to do the same Kids' Camp and service project ministry that they would do in Mexico...but better. Several families started coming to New Song as a result of their kids' lives being impacted by our teens, and it really teaches our students the lifelong lesson of evangelism and outreach WHEREVER life takes them. Also, it costs a lot less, so we are then able to send the surplus money to Children's Hunger Fund, an amazing ministry that conscientiously works through local churches in impoverished communities around the world to feed the hungry physically AND spiritually.
My roll on this trip for the past few years has been cook, and as usual, it was absolutely exhausting! (as evidenced by this horrific picture Jim got of me!)

$2,000 in groceries and my dad's full truck later, my living room was full of a week's worth of food for 75. That chaos eventually settled into about 20-25 labeled boxes, and another truckload of ice chests and tables and propane griddle and huge pots and pans and water coolers, etc. My brain was spinning for days trying to get it all organized!

 BUT, thanks to simplified meals and preplanned menus and shopping lists, it definitely is getting "easier." I even had time to go for a run three days during the week!
And...for the second year, we were able to borrow an AMAZING RV from our AMAZING friends the Walkers. Seriously, this thing is almost nicer than my house...and it even has Direct TV! I gotta admit, I definitely appreciated the Disney channel when I was trying to get dinner ready. That and the blow-up pool were lifesavers!

 (Jadon watching Cars with a friend)

That was another thing that made it easier this year: Jadon hung out with our students a ton. They loved taking him to the park (they weren't allowed to go unless they had him with them) and playing with him and watching movies with them, etc...and he had a blast being the center of their attention.

It was cute watching him get involved at the different kids' camps, too. He thinks he's one of the teenagers, and he loves getting on stage and leading the scream-team (worship) with them, or getting right in the mix during game time.

 All in all, the week was a huge success, with a lot of significant spiritual moments for our students. I never look forward to the week, but I'm always glad I was part of it.

*Austin:
After GOAL, Austin went back to live with his mom, who is currently living in a good apartment and seems to be pretty stable. Please pray for this transition for him. We think it is for the best, but change is never fun, and sometimes "the best" isn't necessarily the easiest.

*Ragnar:
After Austin moved out, I had a few days to deep clean the house, put away all the Seder/Easter/Shower/GOAL stuff, and get ready for Ragnar So Cal (this past weekend). Let's just say that in a week where I should have been getting as much rest as I could, I ended up with 3-5 hours a night...But more on Ragnar in my next post...

Passover

My senior year of high school, my parents befriended a guy at church who was Jewish, and a member of our Christian church. He called himself Messianic Jewish, and he started teaching them all sorts of stuff about how the Christian church has travelled so far away from our Jewish roots and all the great stuff we were missing out on. They ate it up, as did my 7th grade sister. But to me, getting ready to graduate and move on with my life, it was more of a nuisance.

I moved off to college and they continued learning all sorts of stuff, and I thought it was cool enough, but I was glad it didn't affect me. I'm not a big fan of change. I graduated and started teaching, still on my own, and then my sister went away to college and got involved in a Messianic club on campus and started attending a Messianic Fellowship...I mean, she just went crazy with all this Jewish stuff. And I still thought of it as cool for her (at best) and annoying for me (at worst).

But somehow over the years, she/they got to me. And I started realizing how much these traditions and Biblical commands and customs still should be a part of our lives today...and how much they enrich our faith in Jesus Christ. It's awesome!

So five years ago, my sister and I hosted our first Passover Seder dinner at my church. It was such a success that we did it again the next year. Then she moved back to Israel and another woman from church who is just as passionate about these things stepped up and led it (while I did the food) the next two years. But this year, she has been plagued with health problems and had to step out. And my sister is still in Israel. So...gulp...I was left to lead it alone. And just in case I was considering chickening out, God ensured I didn't have that option, because the pastoral staff stuck it on our calendar and the Easter schedule and in the programs before I had the chance. Now mind you, I am perfectly comfortable with all the behind the scenes stuff like cooking the meal and preparing the Seder plates, etc. But leading a group through all the prayers and blessings and the symbolism pointing to Jesus (and the Hebrew!)...that's totally out of my comfort zone! I don't know what I'm doing!

Fast forward to present, I can look back and say this was my best Passover yet. Our family stuck all our bread and yeast products in the freezer and subsisted on leaven-free meals like matzah pizza all week, I poured over the internet and others' Haggadahs (the spoken/read order of the seder) and developed my own (without Hebrew!), my parents cooked up a storm...and we did it! And it was really cool and meaningful. There was even a Jewish lady (non-Christian), who thanked me at the end and was smiling. (Either she was really polite, or I didn't botch it that bad!) (And maybe she even took something away that will start her on a path to discover Jesus as her Messiah...Wouldn't that be cool!) Oh, and Jadon looked really cute in the yarmulke with fake Orthodox curls from Sarah and Greg. :o)

Thank you God for stretching us out of our comfort zones in order to help us learn and grow!

Miracle Stain Remover

It's Good Friday, so I probably should be exploring the miraculous death and resurrection of Jesus, whose generous death on the cross amazingly removed the stain of sin in our lives, past, present, and future. That truly is something to brag about while remaining humbly grateful.

At the same time, I have another stain remover, in a bottle, I must brag about. My sister's friend Janna gave me a bottle of this "SoilLove" from the 99c store, right before Sarah's wedding. She claimed it was amazing stuff that she bought by the case load. I must admit, I was skeptical. I mean, it was only 99c. Oxyclean doesn't even work that well, and it costs a whole bunch more! I used it once on a minor stain, and I think the stain went away, but I didn't really notice. The cheap green bottle sat untouched in the cabinet above my washer.

Until...

...my crisp white table cloths were marred by huge ugly purple stains from the Passover Seder we did at church. (Note to self: kids + grape juice = big mess.) I was bummed and set them aside for several days, not wanting to face the reality of the ruin. Finally, I figured I might as well see if a combination of all my costly stain removers plus a gallon or so of bleach could get the table cloths back to at least a semi-usable state for next year. I reached for the Oxyclean and my hand bumped into SoilLove. Hmmm...Why not? With no expectations, I poured a little onto the ugliest of purple stains, and my breath was taken away by what I saw. I fell in Love! I grabbed my camera and tackled the next tablecloth. Let me show you what I discovered:

This transformation took place within the span of less than a minute. Every one of my crisp white tablecloths is perfectly clean. It's amazing.

Alot like what Christ did to my heart.

Passover Treats

Passover begins next week and we are gearing up in preparation. Thanks to my friend Patty Kepley (who is majorly helping with the food preparation on Monday!) who shared her idea for Chocolate Covered Matzos, I attempted this leaven-free dessert last night. Not bad! Kind of bland, but sort of like unsalted-chocolate covered pretzels.

Thanks Patty!