AWANA 2016

May was an extremely busy month for us.  We had the culmination of many events, tons of activities scheduled and lots of projects due.  AWANAs was just one of the many things that came to an end for the "school year".  We love AWANA at our house.  The kids look forward to each club night on Sundays from September to May.  The kids memorized so many verses this past year, and I firmly believe these have been hidden in their hearts.

This past year, Luke was in the Kinder-2nd grade Sparks class, and Abbey was in the Cubbies class for 3-4 year olds.   This was the first year for Luke in Sparks, and it was quite a big leap in the amount of memorization each week versus Cubbies.  For example, one of the verses Luke memorized was John 3: 14-16:

¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

It was tough, but he memorized every single set of verses in the book.  He even had to recite all the books in the New testament one week.

Cubbies was one of the highlights of Abbey's week each week.  In fact, she loved it so much that the recurring theme for her pretend play in her bedroom each day with all of her stuffed animals was re-enacting Cubbies club.  Abbey was the Cubbies teacher and all of her students were the stuffed animals.  It was adorable and heart-melting to hear her teach those stuffed animals about Jesus and help them recite their verses each week.

At the end of each AWANAs club semester, the kids got to go to the AWANA store and use their AWANA bucks to buy whatever prize they wanted.  It was fun to see what the kids would select with those hard-earned bucks.  This semester, Abbey selected some minion chapsticks in various colors.  She told me that she selected those because she wanted to have lipstick just like me.  She put that "lipstick" on every day "just like I do."  After a few days of putting that "lipstick" on ALL day long, I told her I would let her have some "real" lipstick that has good ingredients in it in exchange for those minion chapsticks,  She loved that idea and now she has her very own lipstick that she keeps in one of grandma's old purses (that is now hers).

On the last day of AWANA, the kids had an award ceremony.  Each of them received certificates for completing everything in their books.  They also sang a couple of songs and Abbey even recited a verse on stage.


Here is Luke and his Sparks class:

  

Here is Abbey reciting a verse when she was on stage:

The kids are really excited for AWANA to start back up in September!  Abbey will be a year-2 Cubbie and Luke will be in Sparks again.  :-)