Crisis

Friday was one of those days.  One of those "when it rains it pours" days.

Firstly, it was our last morning of hosting our almost-2 and almost-3 year old niece and nephew at our house for a week.  The week had it's moments of doubt that we'll ever be able to handle our own kids, but in the end, the kids were clean, happy and didn't seem desperate to leave our house, so I'll call it a success.

Enter work.  (Does anyone else have the weird problem of not knowing whether to say 'I'm going to work' or 'I'm going to church'?  Is it just me?)  We had to change plans for a middle school event on Wednesday from snow tubing to Nerfmageddon at the church.  Yeah.  I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.  So, in the span of 3 days, we made a backup plan, made a graphic, communicated it to the church, ordered 50 Nerf guns from Amazon (thank you Jesus for 2 day shipping), and somehow managed to convince the facilities staff and the daddy-daughter dance going on in the lobby that there would be no casualties.

As we were opening the Nerf guns, we realized these things are packed better than most nuclear warheads.  So, I grab my big scissors and go to town.  Which worked great, except for the moment when I sliced my hand open and had to go get stitches.  It hurts, and the cut is on the webbing between my forefinger and thumb, which is super inconvenient, but on the whole it's not too bad. 

Then, as I'm on my way out the door to meet a new woman in our young adult ministry, the woman who assists our Community Care Pastor stops me and lets me know that one of my students has been taken to the hospital for suicide watch.  Scary.  Very scary.  So, I text her mom to find out what is going on and find out they'll be stuck in the evaluation/paperwork process for a while and there is nothing I can do.  So, I go to dinner and have a pretty good, if not distracted time.

Back to church/work and work on getting everything set up for our Nerfmageddon event.  It basically involved 40ish middle school students at war with each other in our gym.  I was actually really bummed that my stitches prevented me from wielding a weapon that night.  There were a few students I would have loved to peg.  (In a totally Jesus-loves-you kind of way, of course.)

So, there I am, bandaged hand and clipboard, checking in dozens of students while trying to not disturb the daddy-daughter dance and simultaneously convincing parents that though I can't be trusted with a pair of office scissors, their children will be in good hands.  Or hand.  Then I start counting and realize that the event was such a good idea that 20 students have signed up in the hours leading up to the event and we don't have enough Nerf guns.

Oh dear.

So, leaving Joel and a couple of volunteers to handle the 65-ish middle school students, I drive to Target.  This would be a good time to tell you that we had black paint available for warpaint on their faces.  And I had put some on.  And my hand was wrapped up.  And I was in a hurry.  And I needed to buy 20 Nerf guns.  The poor guy at Target didn't know what hit him.

But before that, I got a phone call from the friend of the student who was in the hospital.  So, I'm painted, bandaged and running into Target trying to explain to a 17 year old why her presence at the hospital might not be the best idea right now and that I knew this was hard on her too and I'd call her later.

After explaining the whole story to a couple of very amused Target employees and running into a youth group mom who helped me carry the guns to my car, I rushed back to church/work and we had a blast.  Every student went home laughing and telling me that the event should have been longer.

I gathered up the cheeseballs, took out the trash, and went to my friend's house for a girl's weekend.  We put on sweatpants, watched cheesy chick flicks that give girls unrealistic expectations for marriage, and ate junk food to our heart's content.

To be continued...