It just can't get any better this side of heaven! Bubbling over For Sunday School!

Sunday was a GLORIOUS BUBBLY DAY!!!

CLICK TO VIEW PICTURES OF SUNDAY PICNIC: http://www.thechurchofgodbessemer.org/photoalbum/ssbubbling060307/index.html

I LOVE my church! We have the BESTEST church in the whole wide world. I love everybody in it!!! I also have a “Church of God” hangover today! We had a lot of the Spirit of God, food, fun, fellowship. I think my jaw is sore from eating and talking too much!!

The day began with our Sunday School Campaign. The weather forecast did say some rain and then up to 80 degree heat, so although we prepared for a church picnic, we knew that we might have to stay inside the fellowship hall due to wet or heat. My hubby and I arrived early that morning and there was a strong cool breeze and blue skies peeking out, so we felt that no rain would be forthcoming, so I decorated our deck (we had one built on the back of our fellowship hall) with streamers and two tables and set out tables & chairs under the trees. (My hairspray did hold in the breeze, but just barely!)

We finished decorating the puppet stage with balloons and streamers and then it was time for church to start. Everybody was in a stage of excitement, getting their vegetable dishes to the fellowship hall, so we didn’t start on time (9:45!!! Be on Time!!!) so we put the puppets on program after Sunday School instead.

Being first Sunday, I also taught Ladies Sunday School class and apologized for my “wind blown” look. The men’s class teacher was sick, so I also had to teach the men. I had a TON of scriptures about how the church fulfills prophecy and why we need a vision of The Church of God. I figured, “why just TALK about how the Church fulfills prophecy….let’s go over as many scriptures as we can stuff in one Sunday School class!!!! SWORD DRILL! Prove it, I say!!! I went over Abraham’s Vision, Moses’ Vision, Peter’s Vision and how THEY held on to their Vision of The Church of God 2 and 3 THOUSAND years ago. Some of them without GRACE. They held on and was faithful through their FAITH in God. Today, we have their records written down, the entire Bible to guide us and the physical manifestation of The Church of God on this earth to keep us safe. We have what Abraham, Moses, Solomon, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, etc. longed for and could only catch a glimpse of through the Spirit of God. We get to LIVE it! The prophets saw the future that many of us will actually get to grab on to. We are so close that we can almost actually touch what they sought after. Our Faith will make their Faith perfect…complete. We almost there!!! I’m still excited about that lesson!

After Sunday School, we had the puppets for our day’s theme: “Bubbling Over For Sunday School!!!” Puppet explained in a fun way that although the “toys, ice cream, funny songs and wackiness” would end today, that Sunday School was still fun and exciting because we learn about the greatest hero of all, Jesus! We ended with a song from Maynard Groovy Bible Tunes (link on this blog) that says, “God Can Do incredibly bubbly…more than you can ever imagine…God Can Do incredibly bubbly…bubbly, bubbly, bubbly more!” At the same time there were white “bubble” balloons floating out from behind the puppet stage and real bubble being blown. After that, the puppets led the audience in a rousing rendition of “It’ bubbling, it’s bubbling in my soul”, which they had to sing faster and faster. I was the lead puppet and I got so out of breath and giggly from being “squatted down” behind a low puppet stage, trying to read the script, sing and hold my puppet at the right angle that I almost couldn’t finish the song. They heard me gasping for breath over the microphone. Ha!

The Sunday School handed out the rest of the Teacher’s recognition gifts for those who weren’t able to attend 2 Sunday’s ago and then turned service over to our pastor.

After church, we found out that we could not have ordered better weather!!! God gave us blue skies, white fluffy clouds and a steady cool breeze! The Sunday School provided 100 piece chicken dinner, ham, rolls and canned drinks that we put in ice tubs. The church members provided vegetable dishes. We set the food on tables, just inside the fellowship hall by the back door to keep the food cool and everyone could carry their plate to the deck or under the trees. We had tables under the trees for coolness, tables on the deck for ladies the who couldn’t or didn’t want to get down the stairs to the ground level and tables set up inside for those who need to have more air conditioning. But it was so cool outside, we could all be outside. We set up a watermelon station on the deck along with iced drinks.

We passed out Bubbles to everyone and the wind helped turn our church property into bubble dreamland! After everyone had eaten and fellowshipped and eaten watermelon, some of the older members went home and my husband, Mike, snuck out water balloons to kids while others were setting up the volleyball net. The kids all decided they were going to water balloon Mike. It was so funny. Every time they threw a water balloon at him, it would bounce off him and break on the ground! They must have thrown 10 – 20 balloons at him over the course of time and he never once got wet. They said he must have had an invisible suit of armor on! Of course the kids got wet, but the breeze was so strong they all dried out before they had to go home.

What was really funny, right in the middle of the water balloon war….a little black cloud blew over our heads and with no warning, a sudden…and I mean sudden….rain storm with huge rain drops just poured water. As one of our older members was running across the yard to get inside the fellowship hall, our pastor joked that God wanted to play water balloons too! His big water balloon WON!!! Our pastor called out to the man who was running, “get him Lord with your water balloon!” The rain quickly passed, the sun came back out, the breeze dried everything off and we all got to sit outside on the deck and watched the more energetic adults and children play volleyball.

We left at 4:00, ran home, cleaned up and got dressed for church again that night at 6:00…because we had a home-school kindergarten graduation ceremony that night with 3 little lady graduates. They were so cute!!! They got to walk down to Pomp & Circumstance and we got to hear all the fun & Godly stuff they learned in school. They got their diplomas and roses.

CLICK TO VIEW KINDERGARTEN GRADUATION AND FAMILY CAMP FUNDRAISER PICTURES: http://www.thechurchofgodbessemer.org/photoalbum/k5gradcampfund/index.html

After that we went into a fund-raiser for Family Camp. The service is: I pay a certain amount for someone to sing, play, do something. And that person either has to do it or pay double to get out of it. It sounds silly, and you may not believe me, but we do feel the Spirit of God in this service. We ask and pay for serious songs where we clap and sing along and praise the Lord and then mix silly songs like “You can’t get to heaven on roller skates” and my husband’s “courtship song” and “Spanish song” (hubby not a singer) and a couple of “camp songs”. We had unlikely “men quartets”, a family choir, ladies choir and a men’s choir.

Click on this Link to see & listen Woman's Choir at our Family Camp Fundraiser: http://www.thechurchofgodbessemer.org/videos/womenschoir.html

Click on this Link to see & listen to a new quartet someone created @ the Family Camp Fundraiser: http://www.thechurchofgodbessemer.org/videos/menquartet.html

Click here to see more videos from Bessemer.

All in all we had great fun, with The Spirit of The Lord and raised $360+ for Family Camp! I LOVE OUR CHURCH! Everybody has such a good spirit! And we ALL LOVE EACH OTHER!! Afterwards it was back to the fellowship hall for a Graduate’s reception with leftover chicken, sandwiches, and punch & cake! After cleaning up, it was about 11:50 at night before we left for home.