Christmas Party at Gary's

This past Friday, we took 27 kids over to Gary's house (new Director at Farm Drive) to have a Christmas Party. Before we left, Gary did a little warm up. Listen and laugh!

After arriving at Gary's house we had BBQ hamburgers and chicken sandwiches.

Then many games were played all around the house, for example Twister!

A little Bingo

A little friendship

A little more friendship

A slide down the stairs, video. Sorry it's sideways. You have to turn your monitor sideways. or turn your laptop sideways. ....

or turn your head





It was a great experience. Everyone had fun. Gary was very gracious to let us destroy ( I mean use) his house!
On the way home we had a special treat for the kids by driving over to the Gleason houses. If you have never seen them it is real fun.

Store

Every year at Christmas we have a "store" so they kids can buy gifts for everyone in their family. This year was our biggest ever! We also had one apt. just for wrapping and people came and helped the kids wrap all their gifts.

We asked for donations from people at church and got a huge response. We were actually worried we'd have a bunch of stuff leftover and have nowhere to put it. After a couple of hours of letting the kids shop, we let the parents in. Needless to say we had nothing left. Thank you to all those that donated stuff and to those that came and helped wrap. The kids had a great day!

High School Christmas Party for FD

On Wednesday, the 10th of December, the high school group from Hillside put on a Christmas party for the kids at Farm Drive. They have done this for a number of years. The kids were picked up and taken to the church. They were divided into 4 groups and came up with a team name. Dinner was served, (pizza) and then they made a craft by decorating a frame. Their team picture went into the frame. They also played some games like "pop the balloon tied around your opponents ankle"!

Hey, is that Santa playing too?

They decorated an picture frame that their teams picture went in and then everyone got a Nativity as a gift. The high school group did a great job!

Another competition that they did was to decorate a Christmas tree. Not an ordinary
Christmas tree.... but oh, you can see below:

Silly Pete.....

This is actually scary!

What is Christmas Spirit?

This time of year you hear people say that they just can't get into the Christmas spirit. I think we all know what they are saying. We may experience it ourselves. But what is it really we are saying? Is it something that goes back to our childhood and the feeling we get around Christmas time? Can't wait till school gets out, helping dad put the lights on the house, buying a tree and hanging lights and ornaments. Then there are the smells. The smell of the Christmas tree, the smell of mom's Christmas cookies, the smell of a fire burning in the fireplace. (Maybe even chestnuts roasting?) All of these plus other traditions help put us into the Christmas Spirit.

But there are things that seem to prevent us from getting there. Busy schedules both at work and parties and shopping for our friends and family. Relationships that turn sour or are difficult may also keep us from that spirit. What are your reasons for not getting into the Spirit?

Maybe we have the wrong idea of what Christmas Spirit is. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, the Savior, Immanuel. God with us who saves us from the ills of the world with a message of hope and peace. Followers of Jesus are called to duplicate this message. The spirit of this season would then be a message of hope. (Actually this should be year round!)

How then does this play out? For me, when I see God's people give sacrificially to help others, that gets me into the Christmas spirit. It is even enhanced when I get involved. The more it happens, the more I see God at work bringing hope to people. Lately, I see that almost every day. A couple of examples were mentioned in the previous post. I will be posting some events that have taken place over the past couple of weeks (now that I have pictures.) I have seen people get laid off from their jobs and watched their friends and family rally around and help them in many different ways.

Being apart of Farm Drive, we see so many people adopt families for Christmas and go out of their way to be help to those less fortunate. When I get fed up with the commercialism of the Christmas season, I think of all that is being done to others in need and that helps me get in the Christmas spirit!

It's Been Awhile

Yes, it has been awhile. Just have not had enough access to a computer. Now that has been taken care of, will get back on track.
Some say that blogs are so last year. Maybe that has something to do with it. Nah. I like to live in the past anyway.
Patty's computer is in the shop getting an upgrade and that is where the photo's are. We will just have to do a blog without pictures.
A few things pop into my head as I think about living here. A couple of Sunday's ago after Patty and I ran a few errands, we came back and found blood on our stairway. It went up to our window. We found out a kid got a bloody nose and ran to our house to get help. We weren't home so he finally went home.
As I was taking a hose and brush to clean up the mess, one of our neighbors came up and needed a ride to a local grocery store. Her car was not working and needed a ride. Patty took her to a particular store where she could wire her sister some money. Our neighbor is working two jobs and is not getting much sleep. She can also not afford to fix her car.
Tonight as I was eating dinner, another neighbor came by and offered food. Appears there is a birthday party and plenty of food. She brought by tacos and pazole. Yum.
This morning I filled in for Robbie at Bible Club. His small group is the older boys ages from 13 and older. There was 8 guys there and we went over the part of the Christmas Story in Luke where John the Baptist was born. John was to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.
The Farm Drive Center is a place of Peace, Hope, and Love. People know that.

An Interesting Article

http://www.compassion.com/sponsordonor/compassionmagazine/alittlechildwillleadthem

Captains Ship

Here is a video of a game we were playing last night with Gary, the Captain!