Sat 2/10 - 11:30 PM

[We had a four-day workshop in Sacramento. This entry contains details about that workshop.]

I want to remember:
- Spy Kids/Shepherd of the Hills/Oompa Loompas/clowns/funerals [details of a funny dream that Emie had]
- karate and stinky feet [unfortunately I don't remember what this was about now. :( ]

Our public speaking class went OK. The kids had trouble with their scripts. [Each of our three students was supposed to write and present a monologue about how a certain Bible character showed faith.] One girl, Jessica, didn't finish hers until the 6th hour. [We had a total of six hours of class time.] I wish we would have been able to have more practice time. As it was, I wasn't really able to listen to the speeches morre than once or twice before the final presentation, and each speech had a couple things that could have been done better. Oh well. I think the kids did their best, and that's really all I can ask. I've been focusing too much on what Andrew thinks and less on the kids. It's like it's my show, my pass/fail test. [If Andrew likes it, I pass. If Andrew doesn't like it, I fail. I had to work on seeing success as "the kids learned a lot about public speaking," not "Andrew really liked their speeches at the final presentation." This is still something I'm working on. Below - one of our students presents her speech]

I think I personally am getting better at public speaking. Andrew called me up [at the final presentation] to introduce the public speaking class, even though he had specifically told me that he would do it. I think I handled it well, given the 10 seconds that I had to prepare. Another fun thing from this workshop was certificates [each kid received a half-page certificate saying how well they had done with the Scripture memorization]. They were printed during the last song, and folded and torn [we had no scissors] while Andrew tried to buy some time after the song. Michelle Otto [the director of the Sacramento team] helped. Without her I would barely have made it. We got it done!

Mail time! We had a couple good ones. One was in the car, where the Brown family had to do the Three Little Pigs + Goldilocks/Little Red Riding Hood. Mr. Brown was Goldilocks/Little Red Riding Hood. [He was supposed to be LRRH, but he thought he was supposed to be Goldilocks.] Ryan was the mother that sends them out into the wide wide world, Rachel [age 9] was the Big Bad Wolf, and the others [Mrs. Brown, Courtney, Emily] were pigs. Plus Andrew served as narrator and sound effects producer, and Olivia had a small part as Santa Claus. Classic. We got it on tape. :)

More classic: Andrew's single mime to the Boyz in the Sink theme song [for a package from Jenny], ballet to Alcatraz [letter from Jenny], and Ryan's tea party. All on tape, and as awesome as they sound.

There's SO much to write about, it's hard to decide what's most important. Yesterday we had three presentations at a Christian school and a four-hour workshop. That was really tiring. We actually had another girl present with us. Evidently she went on the Midwest [Mission Trip] last year but is too old to be part of the local team here, which currently has 9-13 year-olds. [She's 16 or 17.]

Tonight we presented at a Chinese church. It was neat. Andrew actually went up and explained it afterwards (in face) [because the lyrics were in English, and most of the parishoners only spoke Chinese]. We were presenting with several people from the local team, and everyone's makeup, minus Andrew's and Emie's, was horrible. One guy wiped off 1/4 of his and had to try and spread it back over. He only had half of an outline. Everyone's was thing, greyish, and uneven. The team didn't look that professional clothes-wise either - inside-out shirts, blue jeans. [In the picture above, our team is in mime shirts, and the local team is in ACTION shirts and t-shirts.] Oh well. It worked. [The presentation itself went pretty well. Andrew missed a big cue in Be Still, but other than that it was solid. Afterward, he admitted that he was pretty out of it. We razzed him about it for the rest of the trip.] Then we attended their youth group. The youth pastor has only been saved for a year and a half, but I admire his boldness and passion. He really tries. We played Bible Jeopardy. Our team won. Andrew said that he and I should be on separate teams, which I took as a pretty high compliment. All the questions were pretty easy.

Things I didn't know I was good at:
- The twist [AIM hairstyle]
- Writing thank-you notes [I wrote them at every single host home for the entire trip! I wrote one at the first house, and then the other girls wouldn't let me stop.]

I found out I'm staying with Grandma Roberts in San Francisco tomorrow night! Just me and her. I'm soooo excited!!!

It's 11:58. Olivia is switching our laundry. We have to drive at 9:45 tomorrow, and Emie wanted to get up at 6:30. We (especially I) were pretty harsh with her. I mean, that is really early, probably earlier then we really need to get up, but I could have dealt with it better.

I havent' been spending as much time with God as I'd like. I definitely need to catch up on Bible reding tomorrow. I'm 2-3 days behind. I'm doing OK, but I know I could do so much better if I was relying on God's strength instead of my own. So I really want to work on that. God is so awesome. I'm so glad I'm on his side. This is the life!