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Promotion Sunday - Sunday, September 5

Engage Children's Ministry Conference, Nov. 5-6
This exciting conference, hosted by WSEFC, features over 40 different workshops, inspiring worship, a challenging keynote speaker, and many of the latest children's ministry resources. The cost is only $10. Pick up a brochure from any of the Awesome Adventure registration desks.

Donations for Filey's Learning Center of Dillsburg
As many of you know, Christ Lutheran Church in Dillsburg recently experienced a devastating fire. The Learning Center at Filey's was located inside that building and is in need of supplies. We invite you and your children to help by donating toys (new or used), art and craft supplies, paper supplies, and/or cleaning supplies. Drop-off bins are located in the nursery, preschool, and elementary lobbies until Sunday, September 5th.

Soccer Balls for Missions
Jonah Steiner, a 5th grader in our church, is collecting new and gently used soccer balls to send to Haiti. Jonah plans to continue collecting soccer balls for Honduras and Costa Rica, too. Soccer balls can be dropped off at the collection site across from the tiki hut.

Friendly Greeters Needed
Registration desk volunteers are especially needed for the first service, 'early bird" shift. Serve twice per month from 8:45 AM to 9:20 AM and welcome families. Contact Darva Kinney at 620-2330 ext. 104

Are Your Kids Interested in Scouts or American Heritage Girls?
The Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and American Heritage Girls are having their program night on Monday, Sept. 13 at 6:30 p.m. If you'd like to sign up your kids for these ministries or at least get more information, please plan to attend.

Lots of Ways to Serve

Contact Darva Kinney (697.0226, x104)

Nursery Caregivers Needed

Do you like music, smiling, coloring, playing, and reading? So do our little ones! Please share your love for God by volunteering in the nursery. Openings available during first and second service, and on an every-other-month rotation.

Preschool and Elementary Teachers Needed
All but one teaching position (including first and second service classes) has been filled in the preschool and elementary departments. Assistants are needed-volunteers who support and help the teachers on Sunday mornings. Twelve assistant teacher openings exist in elementary classrooms, 11 exist in preschool classes. The difficult positions have been filled-now come serve the church body, get to know the kids, share the love of Christ and help a teacher to impart God's word in their hearts!

Special Needs Assistants
Special needs assistants are needed to give individual assistance to a child with special needs.

Spending Time as a Family: Priceless

We dropped in on Faith@Home|Wednesday one week and got chatting with the Lundblad family.

We asked the Lundblad boys, Samuel, age 7 and Philip… uh… also 7 (they’re twins), what was their favorite activity among the many games on Wednesday nights. “Toilet tag,” they said. What’s that, we asked? They got giggling and chuckling... and then their parents jumped in to clarify: “It’s like freeze tag,” Julie Lundblad told us.

We moved on to a more serious question: What have you been learning? Tonight, the boys said, they learned about Daniel and how he prayed three times a day even when he knew he could be put in the lion’s den. Lions? Yikes!

A Spine-tingling, Soul-leaping Experience

Jan Morrison had one of those wonderful praise-God episodes recently, and kindly shared it with us in "an open, cheerful letter" (Would Jan, could Jan, send anything else?). She was thinking about the vow parents take - that we all take - when dedicating young children and ourselves to the Lord.

Jan says that, for 27 years, ever since her family landed in Pennsylvania, the dedication of children has been the "one activity in the life of the church that continues to cause my eyes to tear, my spine to tingle, and my soul to leap."

Busy Bodies and a Pink Chihuahua

One recent evening, 40 or so first- to sixth-grade American Heritage girls, were mesmerized and inspired by a video of happy children’s faces from many lands receiving Operation Christmas Child boxes from the States.

Suddenly, when it ended, they turned into Black Friday shoppers, zipping back and forth

across the Youth Room, picking up shoeboxes, then watching as patiently as they could to learn how to cut paper and wrap their boxes, then dashing excitedly to the table overflowing with yo-yos, crayons, paper, and other simply cool stuff that they had brought in, to snatch up what they liked and were sure their anonymous but about-to-become-new-friends would like too.

Whew!

Experience, Credentials – and How Did I Get Here?

Debbie Walz was never a Brownie, Girl Scout, or anything resembling those groups growing up. So why would you volunteer to lead American Heritage girls, we asked? “Terry Allison tricked me,” she chuckled. Tell us more.

Well, she said, Free Notes had this blurb back in August 2008 about the disbanding of the American Heritage troop unless someone with administrative skills would step up. She pointed to four factors in her favor:

She was good at administrative tasks.
She had been a children’s worker for “about 150 years” (later, we do the math!).
She thought the idea of a Christian scouting group was great.
She knew how to bake cookies.

So, she contacted [Children’s Pastor] Terry to say she would be interested in serving “in, what I thought was, an administrative role.” He sent a job description, which backed up her theory. “I hedged by saying that I would take it on if no one volunteered.” No one did.

The Toddler Whisperer

People have called Joe Hollen names over the years. He doesn’t mind. Each name comes with a story attached – a story that says a lot about this unassuming man.

For example, “Mr. Joe” was a name given to him by a co-worker in Baltimore who developed a liking and respect for him. Joe commuted there for several years from the Mechanicsburg-Dillsburg area after his employer, Verizon, reorganized. He spent 33 years as an engineer with Verizon, which also had lots of names over the years.

Actually, it was “33 years and five months,” according to Mr Joe, a self-confessed analytical-type. He specialized in information processing for the company, and wryly points out that, for three years, he travelled the concrete highway to get to the information highway in Maryland.

After unrooting himself from his big-family, Catholic, farming upbringing in Cambria County and four years in the U.S. Air Force,

Awesome Opportunity for Those Who Never Grew Up

Warning: If you’re feeling too busy to help out at church and yet too guilty not to help, avoid the nursery!

Once you hold one of those babies or watch them all sleep – well, some of them at least – and see the relieved, trusting faces of parents who can finally attend a Sunday service uninterrupted, you’re hooked. You will be back again and again, maybe like West Shore’s Scott Fickes who once gave some time in the nursery 17 years ago – and he’s still there. But that’s a story for another time.

This story is about the huge need and the undeniably rich experience of letting the kids of West Shore know how much they are loved. This story grew out of time spent with Darva Kinney, who used to be a volunteer, and still is of sorts since her hours at the church often exceeds her staff role as Volunteer Coordinator for the children’s ministry.

The numbers
Let’s begin with the numbers. Except for a few staff leaders, the children’s ministry – a.k.a., Awesome Adventure – is a 100 percent volunteer organization. About 160 kind-hearted, devoted folks volunteer each Sunday morning. Add in those who serve behind the scenes doing everything from sanitizing the nursery to preparing crafts, and the total comes to just over 500 Awesome Adventure volunteers!