Barbequed Frog?!

The friend and the foe, the predator and the prey...

It all started when I was at the Willey's for dinner, nothing out of the ordinary. We were watching some lame show (I don't even remember the name it was so lame) and as I had promised, I began to make some yummy peanut butter cookies. Well Jonathan, as he is doing the dishes, suddenly says "hey Megan, if you go out and catch a frog I'll cook it for you." At first I was a little hesitant about this. 'Cook a frog? What has a frog ever done to me?' But then I thought it would be interesting to see if Jonathan actually would cook it. So, me and Julianna went out into the night searching for frogs.

Of course as soon as we took two steps out the door the chorus of frogs stopped. There were a few brave froggy souls that would let out a teasing croak, but not many, only in the far off distance could you hear croaks telling of the ensuing doom. Luckily for me, one of those brave froggy souls was near were I stood like a statue, a hunter waiting for the kill. I waited...he croaked...I moved a few steps closer and waited again. His croaks were fewer between the closer I got, but I had him now. Then the tale-telling sound of a splash. That was the end of him, he might as well have jumped into a pot of boiling water. He made a good run, but I caught him. Oh yes, I got the little guy. He actually was a good size, I did a little research to find out the proper name for this noted singer and decided he must be a Red-Legged Frog (Rana aurora.) Note the red legs. Some believe that the red legs are from some parasite, but no worries, they are totally fine.
See!!! The beast is vicious. That could have been my finger he chomped off!

Well Jonathan did not actually think that I would catch a frog at all, let alone with in 5 minutes. He put up a little fuss, but because he is a man of his word he agreed to cook it. We were not really sure about the best way to cook it. We eventually decided to go with the old 'put it in a pot and slowly turn up the heat' recipe. But then a voice from the back room shouted, "don't you dare cook that frog in my house, in my pot." So we had to go with the barbeque. I really couldn't wait for the barbeque to heat up, I almost ate him raw! As we started out the door my heart just went out to the little guy. I couldn't do it. Like I said earlier, "what has the frog done to me?" I gave him a little kiss before we let him go back into the wild just in case he was my prince. No luck. It was really Robin that saved Rana (that's his nickname) that night from a cruel and certain death, so any comments of heroism and animal-loving will have to go to her.

P.S. Jonathan agreed to make me something else later just because I did catch a frog so we will see what he makes...
But seriously, can't you just see the blood thirsty look in his eyes?

Fun at GC Conference!!!

This past weekend GTC went to Generation Conference at the City Church in Kirkland. It's fun just because we get to hang out and we don't have to worry about staffing anything. We heard Bishop TD Jakes on Thursday night, Joel Stockstill, Shaun Alexander, Judah Smith Friday night, and Jude Fouquier on Saturday. We definately heard some good stuff! Worship was done by Jonathan Stockstill, which was amazing of course!
My favorite speaker was Pastor Judah Smith. He spoke on the difference between the 'have to' and the 'want to.' A good point that was made by I think Jude Fouquier, was the importance of making sure you have a personal spiritual growth plan if you want to see your ministry grow. That was huge for me. Overall it was a good time to relax and be poured into. Me, Kim and MaryBeth had fun checking out all the cute clothes people had. There are some fun styles out there!
One fun thing that I got to do there was go beyond the security guard (he was a volunteer but it sounds cool to say security gaurd) and get a tour of their children's department. It was huge!!! I had fun hearing what they do, and how they run things. I'm trying to gather as many ideas as I can from other churches; espescially bigger churches just so I can have an idea of what big vision looks like.

Random cookie fortune: yeah, so... watch those splinters....

New look for the Imagine room

For those of you who don't know I am the Children's Director at Destiny Christian Center. One of my goals has been to repaint the kids room since during the remodeling process of the church someone filled the holes in the walls leaving white polka dots all over. But then we couldn't find the matching paint to paint over the spots. So it basically needed a whole new paint job. (The room was originally orange and green with blue trim.)
I recruited two of my sixth grade girls to help out, along with Kim (fellow GTC student) and Darla (church secretary). It was quite the process. And of course we could not leave the room with clean shirts, jeans or shoes. The girls ended up painting each others shirts and initialing our pants.

Maraya decided to make herself paint gloves.

The room still has one more day of painting to truly call it done, although we finished all the primer. The room is now simply yellow and blue. We plan to decorate it with a few more things, so I will have to post another blog when that is all finished!

Dream Come True!

I am finally home from our trip to Eastern Washington. Unfortunately I was sick the whole time, but I still had a good time. Let me tell you briefly what we did.
We braved the artic blasts on Wednesday and made our way through White Pass to the Stone church in the thriving metropolis of Yakima.
We had a little scare as the boys van did skid across traffic and into a ditch at one point but everyone was fine and we all made over after 6 hours of driving. We staffed the youth pastor's conference until Saturday and then we went to a church in Moses Lake and stayed with host famlies for two nights. We did both Sunday services and then went on to Leavenworth for a little fun and relaxation in the snow.
What really made the whole trip was that I got to fulfuill one of my goals for the year. In Feberuary all of us who are doing a second year at GTC were asked to write down our goals for the next year, for the next 5 years, and for our lifetime. Well one of my goals for this year was to drive a mini cooper.
Just so happens that Pastor Skip at the church in Moses Lake owns a mini. So I jumped on the opportunity to ask him if he would let me drive it. Pastor Skip loved to show off his car. He took quite a few people out.
The only embarrassing thing was that... well... Since I don't put my e-brake on in my car I never thought to check in his car. Yeah, he had his emergency brake on the whole time I was driving. When I finally parked there was smoke coming out! I was so emabraased. He was too since he was in the car with me and didn't notice. It was fun to drive though!