{"id":27,"date":"2009-03-27T12:21:24","date_gmt":"2009-03-27T12:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/?p=27"},"modified":"2009-03-27T18:30:29","modified_gmt":"2009-03-27T18:30:29","slug":"27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/?p=27","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for Fun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pete Beckman:\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 We are only about 24 hrs away from the start of the trip.\u00a0 Of course the real beginning for us started a couple months ago, when we heard EFCN was planning a trip down to Mexico to help at the school and children&#8217;s home of Emmanuel Ministries.\u00a0 For our family (The Beckmans) it began with a series of dinner conversations with phrases such as &#8220;wouldn&#8217;t it be great if&#8230;&#8221; and &#8220;I&#8217;m sure we could help&#8230;&#8221;.\u00a0 After several discussions, our kids (Paul and Emily) endured the &#8220;It&#8217;s time for a family decision&#8221; moment.\u00a0 Yes, it was a bit like an old Brady Bunch episode, except we concluded our family meeting with a prayer.<\/p>\n<p>So, here we are, scurrying around the house trying to get ready.\u00a0 My wife Beth volunteered to organize a Wacky Olympics evening at the children&#8217;s home.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure who suggested the adjective &#8220;Wacky&#8221;, but I think it originated from one of the adult team members who feared that in any real sporting event our participation would be unfair &#8212; not because of our skills, but because the 100+ kids would be laughing too hard to complete their events.\u00a0 So we settled on games like the Javelin bendy-straw throw, so our soccer playing skills will remain un-photographed.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_29\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-29\" title=\"dsc_00141\" src=\"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/dsc_00141-300x191.jpg\" alt=\"Olympic Supplies\" width=\"300\" height=\"191\" srcset=\"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/dsc_00141-300x191.jpg 300w, http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/dsc_00141.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-29\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Olympic Supplies<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Anyway, for the last several weeks she has been asking fellow team members for goofy games, browsing the web, and buying fun game supplies at the discount stores.\u00a0 It has been years since she has had the chance to shop for sidewalk chalk.\u00a0 We plan on giving each of the kids a medal pinned to the end of a yellow ribbon.\u00a0 Sadly, Naperville is now nearly ribbonless.\u00a0 Beth bought out <strong>all<\/strong> the yellow and gold ribbon at 5 different stores, including Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and JoAnn Fabrics yesterday.\u00a0 My contribution?\u00a0 I intend to be wacky.\u00a0 I have no doubt pictures will follow.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, this blog?\u00a0 How does it work?\u00a0 While we are on the trip, we plan to write a couple posts each day, to let friends and family know what&#8217;s up.\u00a0 So turn your browsers here and please feel free to post comments.\u00a0 As we have time, we will read comments to the entire group (about 30 of us) and respond.\u00a0 For the tech savvy, you can subscribe to this RSS feed (that means you will be automatically notified of any new posts to the blog).\u00a0 To do that, click the little orange icon in the top right corner of this page.\u00a0 Or, just check back to this page once or twice a day for updates.<\/p>\n<p>If you have any fun game ideas, please post them in the comments section!\u00a0 I plan on teaching the kids Poppity Pop Pop &#8212; A game that works in every language, and with every age.\u00a0 It&#8217;s easier to describe with a video, so stay tuned.<\/p>\n<p><em>-Pete<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pete Beckman:\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 We are only about 24 hrs away from the start of the trip.\u00a0 Of course the real beginning for us started a couple months ago, when we heard EFCN was planning a trip down to Mexico to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/?p=27\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leopardshark.com\/efcn-mx\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}