Angela Miedema
I've lived my entire life (excepting my time at Dordt College) in the PRinsburg, MN area. I'm 35, been married for 15 years to the love of my life (thank you to Dordt for bringing us together!), and have two fabulous kids: Gabriel is age 4 and Chloe is 18 months. My husband is Canadian by birth, but we have corrputed him ... he is now a US citizen. We are pretty active in our church and small group. I am the chairperson for the church Nursery Team, a job I love most of the time. I love our community and especially our church even though we have our issues from time to time. Where am I going? Hmmm not really sure. My biggest goal in life is to raise our kids to love and fear the Lord, but I also really enjoy helping others and wish I had more time and money to put towards that.
Posted in: Churches Need to Address Allergies and Sensitivities
Amen!
Posted in: Has anyone struggled with their nursery floor being too hard?
Oh my lands yes! Every time a toddler takes a tumble in our nursery I worry that they are going to end up really hurt, not to mention all the skinned knees and rug burn for the crawling babies in the summer. The only thing we have done is around any slides or climbing equipment we have invested in some of those floor mats that are about 1" thick and go together like a puzzle. :( If you find a better idea let me know!
Posted in: What sign-in procedures are effective for the church nursery?
Tom, any idea how expensive it is to get a system like that for about 15-20 kids? As for sign in sheets Heather, I just made one up on Xcel Spreadsheets for ours. If I can find a way to link it I will try. Ours is made to accomodate this info for each child each time they sign in: Child's Name, Child's ID #, Signed in by, Signed out by. The parents have to bring their corresponding ID tag with them to retrieve their child, although our workers aren't great about enforcing that. Hard to enforce safety procedures in a small town church where you think you know everyone.
Posted in: Disciplining a Retired Pastor
Very well said.
Posted in: Allergy-Free Snacks for Sunday School
I think that most of the time when a teacher brings a snack, it is just meant to be a nice treat for the kids. Plus, at least at our church, children's church happens right at my kids normal morning snack time so we do really appreciate that they are getting a small bit of something so they aren't so whiny after church. I would recommend just telling teachers that the church will provide the snacks so that there is no confusion on what is allowed.
Posted in: A Perspective on Gun Violence Prevention
Mr. Prins,
Until our government can actually prove itself able to effectively carryout the current gun control laws, what would be the possible point of passing new ones that are more restrictive towards honest, law abiding gun owners? Criminals will not obey these new laws, they don't obey the old ones. The young men who have committed all the viloent mass murders in recent years all had mental heatlh issues and were on medications of some sort. Many if not all of them were bullied and felt rejected by their peers. Maybe we could start with the actual causes of why these monsters did what they did before we start going after the inanimate objects that were used.
I do understand that to some these arguements sound heartless. They want us to DO something to make the survivors feel better, safer, like their children didn't die in vain ... but doing the WRONG something will not help them. Lets do something real, tangible and effective because I guarantee you that even if Congress had passed all these new laws it would not have stopped that boy from going into that school and commiting murder. He would have found a different source for his guns, or he would have cooked up a bomb, or an incendiary device or something else.
Please understand that those of us who want to protect our 2nd Amendment rights do not say these things lightly. We realize the potential for violence, but without guns in the hands of honest people, a whole LOT more people could and will die. Guns do save lives too, you just never hear about it because it isn't exciting TV viewing. Let focus on things that will help, protecting vulnerable children from bullies, helping families with mentally unstable kids to get them GOOD help so that this never happens to them.
Posted in: A Perspective on Gun Violence Prevention
Larry,
That is not fair. Your frustration is understandable, but to say that pro-2nd amendment people don't care about life is not fair to them and at least in respects to myself is a lie. We care about life, but we want the ability to defend it ourselves. I live in a town where my son's small Christian school is 20 minutes away from the nearest law enforcement.
Its been mentioned time and again, making it harder for people like me (on a tight budget but still a law abiding citizen) to own a gun will NOT stop a criminal from getting one. They steal or buy from drug dealers, gangs and the black market, there are NO background checks for those sorts of people. I have the RIGHT to protect my child from these madmen and if it takes a gun to do it then thats what I'll do. Please, Larry, do not assume that because we come from different view points and "cultures" within our own country that somehow us rural, Constitution loving Americans care any less about life then you do. Rather, why don't you give me an example of a new law that would actually stop a criminal from getting a gun illegally. How will my being defenseless make me love life more? Convince me of your stance rather then slandering me and those like me, prove that my children will be safer and how? Can't we have a conversation and learn from each other without getting rude and hostile the way the secular world has on this issue?
Posted in: A Perspective on Gun Violence Prevention
Small world. Larry I live just a couple hours from Edgerton and actually have family and friends from there. :) Anyhow, my main 2 questions went unanswered from my last comment. I realize that you can't possibly answer them because even our dear elected leaders at the head of the gun control measures can't answer them. Don't you ever get frustrated when a politician sidesteps around an answer because they don't know or don't want to admit they might be wrong? Until these 2 questions are truthfully answered and with a fair bit of detail I cannot trust the governments motives (even those yours might be more pure): How will passing these new laws stop a criminal from getting a gun when our current laws are not even being enforced? How will this make me safer? From my perspective it only makes us easier targets for bad guys be they in masks or suits.
Posted in: Do Christians Become Jerks Online?
My husband and I have been playing games and communicating on the internet before it was even cool (over 17 years). We are actually customers of Blizzard as we play one of their games and run a guild (a group of like-minded people working together in the game). We too have noticed that people seem to think that because no one knows who you really are its ok to do and say whatever they want. Our guild is a family guild that is Rated G, where kids are welcome and safe from the vulgarity in other parts of the game. When new members join quite a few of them (sadly a lot of the young teens) are shocked that we enforce a no swearing, flaming, or taking the Lord's name in vain policy. There is a certain 3 letter acronym om* that we do not allow and it blows their mind, even the Christian kids are confused why we don't allow it. The seem to think that acronyms aren't "really swearing" and so they are ok. As aguilla1 stated earlier, we teach our members to think before they type.
I was actually hoping Blizzard would follow thru with that threat as it might really clean up or at least inhibit some of the nastier things about the gaming world. As someone who plays an MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game) I have witnessed a lot of that behavior. I admit that even I do act differently online than in real life. I hold true to my values as a Christian, but I am much more outgoing online. In real life I'm fairly shy and prefer not to lead things if I can avoid it. Online I am the Co-Founder of our guild and end up training people, leading events, and policing our chat and when necessary punishing people who rule break. I have had to counsel teenagers in our guild when they were having problems at home, a young girl who was considering killing herself, adult friends who's teens are out of control or who were considering divorce and we have even befriended a few veterans who try to escape their PTSD online. I joke around a lot more online and have an easy time making friends, not something I do easily in real life.
In the last couple years my leadership skills and online character has started seeping into my real life. My husband and I are going to be leading a new SMall Group this fall, I have many many more "real" friends now then I did before, and we are both involved in or leading committee's at church now. So while I do agree that there are some HUGE dangers to be had in the online world and the anonymity it provides, I think I can also hold myself and my husband up as examples of some of the benefits. Being anonymous allowed me to grow into a better leader and to gain self-confidence I never could have in the real world alone and luckily we have been able to translate these new found skills into our lives.
I think that if more Christians were to live their faith in their online interactions that we could use the web as yet another tool to bring people to Jesus and even someone who lives in a tiny town of 500 people (me) can reach out to people all over the globe!
Posted in: Fourth Question in the series "I'd like to know something about..."
Our church is currently without a Safe Church team. As the head of the Nursery Ministry this leaves me and my co-chair stuck trying to write and implement safety policies for our nursery. The church membership is resistant to most all safety practices as they don't see them necessary in our small town. We found out very quickly that the terms "Abuse Prevention" and "Safe Church" make some people quite angry. They feel like if we need these safety procedures that we must not trust them and they get insulted. What can we do to change these perceptions?