Malachi prayer meeting

And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Mal 4:6

Malachi prayer meetings started about two years ago, I guess. As a prayer focused community (IHOP-KC) we want our kids not only to bw participants but also the creators of the activities that concentrate and point toward the reality where prayer and fasting are the fundamental disciplines of every day life.

These prayer meetings are called Family Prayer Meetings, because the whole families even with the small children are coming to assist our kids in creating their own prayer meeting.

Our vision is to establish a place for families to engage in prayer together, and for parents to partner with the CEC to raise up their children as intercessors, worshippers and musicians. Our prayer meetings will be structured around twenty minute prayer themes focused on the Church of Kansas City, our government, missionaries, local schools and many other topics. Intercession times will also include times of small group prayer, rapid fire prayer, and the laying on of hands to those who are sick.

Kids and teens are leading worship, playing instruments ans leading prayers, old people (parents) are making sure that the younger crowd (under 3 years old) are not leaving the building and assisting in making the meeting to go smoothly.

St. Nicholas party

St. Nicolas day is big in Poland, and in Europe. In Poland kids are usually waiting for St. Nicholas (święty Mikołaj) on the evening of Dec 5th. There is always an anticipation, if he will bring a gift or rózga (a bunch of sticks to beat your little behind if you were notty).

To have more fun, we invited some kids to share this special day. We’ve had Australians, Poles, Dutch among us, not mentioning out of state people, so it was truly an international event.

I have made a little puppet of St. Nicholas (bought $1 Santa Claus puppet at Dollar General, cut one part of the hat off, sewed to make a shape of tiara) to tell the stories about St. Nick. There was cookie decorating, food,  gift exchange.

Polish invasion

We’ve had five Poles staying in our YWAM style looking basement for two weeks. They came for the Worship Summit at IHOP-KC. The seminar was awesome. Dr Terri Terry blew my mind away. The participants came from all over the world, mostly from Korea, Russia and Poland. I was translating 2-3 sessions a day, simultaneously… which was sometimes quite challenging.

Polish landscape

But the highlights from these two weeks were coming from me being able to spend some time with my friends. I realized again, how different the Eastern European soul is from the Western counterpart. We are soooooooo…

relationship oriented,

home-cooked food lovers,

late night talkers,

tea drinkers,

down to earth practical, but also unapologetically romantic,

strongly opinionated, critical, but instantly mesmerized by suddenly spotted beauty,

painfully realistic, but captivated by melancholic poetry…

and many other things…

Wroclaw

So… stop saying these jokes about Poles

Well, that’s why I wasn’t here or there for a while, but I am back…

5 year old

Teah and Kevin are at the Signs and Wonders camp (click the banner to read), which means Mon-Fri: quiet house. Right? Not, when you have 5 year old!!! I thought I would have time to attack some of the parts of the household, which are neglected an no one even knows what grows there any more, but… 5 year old needs to be entertained. So after reading 120 books, playing 38 board games, helping me with the cooking and cleaning, having some friends over, watching all of the movies we own, it’s Friday and the older kids are coming home to reunite with the lonely 5 year old Sophie.

Next year, please do the camp for 6 year old available too.

FCF Sunday worship

Last Sunday Brocks Upper Room group had a privilege to accompany IHOP-KC orchestra in Sunday worship. The kids were playing “All honor, all power” and “Jesu, my desire”.

picnic

We went to the picnic. Bone fire, horses, cats, peacocks. Worship circle, glory of the sunset, laughter. One of the fasting teams at IHOP celebrated the end of their 21 day fast.

Here are all the pictures on black, or below the selection (you can click on each of them to expand).

At the end the kids were riding the horses, but the battery in the camera died…