Power Hour!!

Friday the 13^th!

So cool. It’s Friday the 13^th, I just realized this.

It’s about this time the past three years that I begin getting the Champs Camp itch. This may actually be the last day of Champs Camp in Round Rock and I hope it all went well. I heard there is a crazy man by the name of Luke Marrs that is taking the duty of song leader and I am most definitely jealous of his job!

Here in the Bronx, however, I have been able to have a great time with a little thing we call Power Hour! Every Friday at 5 pm we go to a park in one of the local projects and put on a little get together for the kids.

We generally begin with a game of some sort, hangman was our first game, but we may have to throw in some Simon Says and other various starter games . . . we’ll see. Then I get to lead songs with some great kids! It is an interesting group because they are obviously from all parts of the world, ethnically, and they are a good range of ages. I was very curious the first time to see whether or not the older kids would participate, and much to my surprise they began to get into as we sang songs. (I may have heard later from one of the older girls that there is a crush thing going on, but I guess I must deal with the consequences, smile). It has been so great to be a part of an event like Power Hour though and does make me miss Champs Camp even more, but makes me appreciate how I have learned to interact with kids through Champs Camp and the Round Rock church in general.

After this we teach a lesson and then play an organized game and finish everything off with giving them a snack and drink. The parents were really involved and even volunteered to bring the snack this week. Of course, we would love for them to take ownership of Power Hour in this way and so we’ll see if they bring something this afternoon. We were also given a broad number of how many we could expect to come the first time. They said their number last year was as small as 5 kids sometimes but we may expect up to 20. Of course, God decided to prepare some kid’s and parent’s hearts before hand and blow us away when we got there and there was definitely over 30 kids hanging out with us! It was so great!

Last week I was amazed at the answers the kids gave to my questions and they all seemed really excited about what we were doing! I love the energy kids bring and it is one of the most encouraging things I do during the entire week. This afternoon will only be our second Power Hour, but we plan on doing it all summer and going to the park randomly to hang out with the kids when we have a little extra time. Please pray for Power Hour, that God can use us to show his kids how much he loves them and pray that the parents will desire to be actively involved in some way with their kids and their spirituality whether it be taking their kids to a church somewhere, joining one of our house churches, or even bringing snacks to Power Hour so that the kids will enjoy the fellowship even more!