saturday night i had my 6th grade small group guys (international peeps, 6th grade here in the US is about 12 years old) over for an end-of-the-school-year pool party. 3 1/2 hours of pizza, watery mayhem, screaming, xbox, spilling, jumping on the trampoline, and sitting by the firepit. they’re great guys, if a bit overly chatty, and i’m going to miss them this summer. i’m giving myself a few assigments, and naming them here might actually put a fire under my butt to get them done:
1. write each guy a personal letter (not an email), explaining the growth i’ve seen in them this past year, and why i’m excited about them.
2. write each guy’s parents a letter (also not an email), explaining what i see in their guys.
3. host a parent dessert for the 6 sets of parents, and do some early adolescent development training with them.
then, yesterday morning i taught the middle school group at church, in both services. i was week three in a four-part series called “piece of my mind”, that were all special speakers (all from our church) sharing the one thing we wish middle schooler really understood (that was the assignment). that’s a pretty easy assignment for me — i called it…
“i am so into you” -god
and talked about god’s great and perfect love for each of them, and how there’s nothing they can do to change that.
this morning i’m off to birmingham, alabama, for a partnership exploration meeting with the leadership of student life. i’ll see one of their camps tonite, and hang with them in their office tomorrow, before flying back home tuesday evening.
I teach middle school students in Australia – 19 of them. At the start of a term break last year (We holiday differently to your side of the world) I made up a to-do list too. I thought it might keep me accountable to have aired it on my blog site.
Even though I am one of the world’s best procrastinators, it did help … a bit. I hope it helps you more than my … a bit. :)
Your middle schoolers sound like guys my 13 year old would enjoy mixing with too.
Just got back (late last night) from Student Life Camp (we went to Covenant College, Lookout Mtn, GA). It was awesome (again)! Our youth have been going to Student Life Camps for the last 8 years and I have been going for the last 3 myself. 5 solid days of worshipping God, I always feel guilty about not paying to go because I get as much out of it as the students (That is – I feel guilty until I get back my van and drive 14 middle schoolers for 13 hours back to Tampa).
Student Life is a great organization – I really can’t say enough about how well run their camps are. Camp Pastors, Worship Leaders, and staff are always first rate.
Well said, Eric. Student life camps are excellent! Hope you had a good time Marko!
Marko-
I hope you mean parent dessert, as opposed to parent desert, because I have had ENUF of the desert. My 40 days have got to be over!
Shane had a BLAST Saturday night and is already enjoying the very cool teen-dude bible you gave him. You are a blessing!
Traveling mercies,
Kathy
oops!