Friday, January 27, 2012

BINGO FOR BOOKS

Last night I had the privilege of attending our BINGO FOR BOOKS celebration at school. The parent in charge of it emailed me early in the week and told me she was short volunteers and asked me if I would help. I was excited she asked me, and looked forward to the evening.

I showed up and helped set up the books table. I was AMAZED at the book selection that the PTA had purchased, and knew we would have a lot of excited bingo winners throughout the evening.

As it turned out, I was right. From the moment the kids came in with their tickets, through the last one, I REALLY enjoyed it. The Lord gave me an idea not too long into the evening that really made the kids happy. After the kids chose their books, they gave me their ticket and I was to mark their hand to show they had already won. We wanted to make sure every kid got one book, so we limited it to one book per winner. (We had decided if there weren't too many families there, we'd allow kids to have more than one.) Of course, if a parent won, they could let their child have the book. (This worked out REALLY well.)

So, as the kids swapped tickets for books, the Lord told me to be creative with what I drew on their hands. Now, I'm not artistic AT ALL. But, He uses me in words. So, I would mark the kid with the first letter of the word He gave me. I never said, "The Lord says..." I learned years ago that you can speak life over people, and it doesn't need to be "The Lord says..." So, I saw a beautiful little girl and would say "I'll give you a B for beautiful." She would grin. A boy would come up, and I would say "I'm giving you an A because you're an AWESOME kid." The kids loved it, and as they watched each other get their words, they wondered what their own word would be. With the adults, I pretty much stuck with "W for winner" as I felt the evening was for the kids. I LOVED it.

I was ABSOLUTELY exhausted by the end of it, with my feet killing me. It was an AMAZING evening, and I am already looking forward to it again next year.

I wanted to add a sidenote, beforehand there were three sixth graders that I had THE BEST time chatting with as we set up the books. The kids LOVE to read, and it was a blast to talk about what I have read and what they're reading too. One girl said, "Can I just come to your room like once a week and talk about books with you?" I LOVED THAT! *grin*

Yeah, books. So many good books, so little time... *grin*

Lord, can we have another snow day, please? *grin*

LIFE.
IS.
FUN...with a good book in my hands! *grin*

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