First Play Group

In some ways I feel like I've been living my life on hold (as we wait to move)... Although I've made a conscious effort NOT to do this, I have been shying away from "long-term" commitments in preparation for our move. I decided last summer that if we hadn't sold our house by August I was going to start Sadie in pre-school and we were going to get involved in Awana and I'm SO glad we did now that we've made it to the end of Awana and Sadie's "graduation" is several weeks away. I also got involved in a couple "moms" groups that meet once a month.

As for putting things on hold... We decided not to do small group last fall (which was kind of an easy decision since our regular small group decided to take a break for the semester). When cold weather hit and we were stuck inside I discovered that I really missed small group so I started pushing for our group to re-start. We decided to meet twice monthly as opposed to every week and it's been a good change. We're doing a parenting study for the first time ever (we've been with this group for 5 1/2 years and we are all now parents!) and we've been really enjoying it.

Something else I've been wanting to do for some time is to start a play group at our church (and open it up to the community). Last year on my maternity leave we went to our district-sponsored 0-5 play group weekly and LOVED it! I was so excited to be involved in it this year and their grant did not get funded. I realized that I really needed someone to help with this venture because a--I didn't want to do it alone and b--I want it to continue when we do move. I've been praying about this for awhile. Over the last several months I've gotten to know our music minister's wife--Meghan. She's a stay-at-home mom with 2 little boys. Her husband took the worship minister position at our church last summer. When I first asked her if she was interested in the idea she was very enthusiastic and told me "This is what I was looking for to be a part of when we moved here!" God answered my prayers with a definite answer!

We have had fun getting together to talk about our ideas/goals and to plan fun activities. We have received a lot of encouragement and support from our church staff as well. We decided to meet twice a month and are planning to meet throughout the summer. Right now I have no idea what this will grow into but I'm trusting God to use what we have to offer and multiply it! For our first play group we had a "Jonah and the whale" theme. I told the bible study from "inside the whale" and let the kids see what it looked/smelled/felt/sounded like. We had blue jello and whale crackers for snack and then kids got to do different activities with their moms including finger-painting an ocean with a whale and "re-telling" the story using water toys. We had 7 moms and 12 kids total. We were excited with the turn-out and have already talked to many more interested moms. Looking forward to our next group!