Yello!

This past week was Homecoming Week at school. It was a busy week that was hectic but lots of fun for the kids. I’m the Student Council sponsor, so I helped the kids plan the week - but in all honesty, they did most of the work in getting everything organized. Everyday was a different dress-up day for the students and teachers alike - we had a toga day, ninja day, celebrity day, pair day and moroon and white spirit day. Friday was the high point of the entire week with a parade, downtown pep rally, football game, royalty coronation, and finally the homecoming dance. It was a fun week and everything went off as planned, but I was sort of glad to see Homecoming Week winding down!

Saturday brought a bit of down time for me…but not too much. Jesse and Shawn were both here on Friday night for the Homecoming game and both stayed over until Saturday. Shawn’s parents brought his sister up for us to take Senior pictures on Saturday afternoon. We got the pictures done and they turned out pretty well, even though there were about, oh, a hundred million hungry mosquitos outdoors on Saturday. We had a bit of a hard time taking pictures because we had to keep shooing the mosquitos off of Calyn’s face so we could snap the picture!

This morning Kalie and I set out for Omaha around 7am. A few weeks ago Kalie tried out for the NASC (Nebraska Association of Student Councils) state staff and was selected. So today was her first of many training sessions for the new staffers - this time held at the Creighton University campus in Omaha. Since I was missing church at home, I decided to make a quick call to our friends and former pastor, Mike and Kathy Jo, in Omaha to see what time their church started. Well, the timing was perfect and I was able to attend services at the Living Faith Methodist Church in Omaha where Mike is the current pastor. What a joy it was! Kathy Jo has such a warmth about her and Mike has the ability to speak to the congregation as if he were conversing with each and every person one-on-one. He speaks from the heart and relates his sermon to real-life experiences. I enjoyed his sermon and the contemporary music so much. Annie was away at college, but it was good to see Jill, David and Nate. Even though I had never been in their church before, I felt like I had come home!!! What a great ending to my “Homecoming Week!”

The scripture reading was pretty amazing too. At least it really spoke to me. For those of you who like to look things up in the Bible, it was Romans 12:1-2, 9-12. It was about forgiveness, turning the other cheek and repaying evil with kindness. “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. Don’t let evil get the best of you, but conquer evil by doing good.” A good reminder for all of us! Mike joked in his sermon that as a minister, people expect him to do good things because he actually gets paid for being good. The rest of us are good for nothing. (get it??)