Friend of God

The church where the kids have gone to AWANA the past three years has a summer a summer musical program from May through August. The children have memory verses to learn each week and also learn the songs and motions for the musical. This was Nadia's third year doing a musical; it was called "I am a Friend of God." I wish that I had a video of her first performance (on 8/11/2012). She sang that night very loudly and clearly with the most incredible smiles and enthusiasm and even a few extra hand motions beyond the ones the rest of the kids were doing. Priceless. It was at that performance that I realized how badly I wanted a video camera (Paul's parents gave us one at Christmas in 2012) and a longer range lens for my camera (my parents got me one that same Christmas). I used the lens last night and tonight. Paul took some videos last night, and my dad took some tonight, but I haven't looked at them yet. Pop Pop missed a lot of last night's performance as he had to take Oliver out of the sanctuary. Oliver and Paul stayed home this evening so that my parents and I could see the whole thing. This was Ian's second year participating. He did better than last year, but he certainly isn't at all similar to Nadia in this regard. Every year they have done better the first night than the second. The Saturday night performance is at 7pm, and so I would expect they'd be more alert for the 6pm performance on Sunday night, but they always seem a lot more tired (translated a LOT of yawning) during the second performance even though it takes place an hour earlier. Paul's parents have come to the Saturday night performance every year. My parents weren't able to make it up the past two years, but they made the seven hour round trip today. We were so appreciative that they were willing to do this, especially as my dad preached a sermon and taught an adult Sunday School class at their church in Maryland before driving to PA to be with us for 3 hours. That's true love, folks!