Patchwork Post as Summer Winds Down...

I didn't mean to disappear entirely, but the past couple of weeks have been busy! Last week we helped our church put on our (mostly) annual Vacation Bible School. This year we went off-site and did it at the rec center of the housing projects up the hill. The result was challenging, exciting, wonderful and exhausting. Over the course of the week, we had well over 50 kids come through the program, though I don't think we ever topped 45 on any given night. Still, that's a lot of children in a very small (and hot and humid) space.

It was a privilege to be able to help feed these children: food for their physical bodies, but most of all food for their hungry hearts. We used the curriculum my husband wrote/developed three years ago, called "Pirates in Paradise." The nightly skits included a band of awful pirates who at first are focused on finding treasure, only to discover the truth that earthly treasure rots and decays, and only heavenly treasure really lasts. In the end, all of the pirates, except for the villainous Captain Harry DuPillage, come to accept "the royal pardon" and find their lives and hearts totally changed.

*********

We were so tired on Saturday, following the VBS week, that we took the whole day off. That probably doesn't sound like a big deal for a Saturday, but with my husband's two-job schedule, it's a rarity. We all slept in, and after a leisurely breakfast did our weekly library visit. Then in the afternoon we went to a local park to play on the playground and feed the ducks.

It turned out the ducks weren't very hungry -- most of them had congregated on a small island in the middle of the lake, taking naps in the heat of the day -- but we found a few stalwarts near the left-hand bank and fed them. Or at least we tried. Two of them, one white, one black and white, kept patrolling the territory and pushing back a slightly smaller brown duck that wanted food too. We did our best to lob small pieces of bread over the heads of the bullying ducks so that Mr. Brown could also eat, but after a while he gave it up and so did we.

We stopped for ice cream on the way home and made friends with a small, bright-eyed wren in the parking lot begging for crumbs from our cones. We obliged him with a few pieces and watched in fascination as he would pick up the crumb and fly off, every time in the same exact flight pattern, across the busy road and into the parking lot of a shopping area across the street. He'd swoop up high over the roof of the pizza restaurant and zoom into the thicket of a tall green tree. Clearly he was taking food home to the family, for just as soon as you could blink, he'd zoom back out, fly back across the road (same flight pattern) and land just a few feet in front of us, looking at us with bright expectancy. It was my hubby who suddenly remembered we still had bread in the car, leftover from the ducks. So we sprinkled a liberal amount of crumbs all over the parking lot and watched our wren friend, along with some other birds, have a feast. They all seemed to enjoy it, but none more than that hard-working little bird who kept up his trek to the tree behind Pizza Joe's, over and over. What faithfulness!

********

We're heading out soon for our two-day mini-vacation in Erie. We realized simultaneously that we couldn't afford it and that we desperately needed it. The Lord blessed us in that we were able to find a good spot at a local campgrounds (the one we stayed at last year, very reasonably priced, had closed). I can't tell you how much we're looking forward to two and a half days of sun, wind, sand, waves, trees, birds, clouds....the peninsula has become such a refreshing oasis in our busy city lives. I always come back renewed, after lots of time to rest, pray, read, and just soak in the goodness of creation. Hopefully by the time we get back, I'll be in a better writing rhythm here. Here's hoping our computer will also be functioning better after some time off!