ode to mrs. elizabeth

this morning we were trying to round up as many carts as we could find for vbs next week (it is quite the accomplishment to find 12 unclaimed carts and successfully hide them until monday) and it made me think back to some good ole' days at prestonwood. our resource person at prestonwood was mrs. elizabeth...and to say that she was a bit quirky is an understatement. she, however, loves her job and more importantly, she loves the Lord. she and her husband served as missionaries for i don't know how many years but now they're settled in the dallas area and she works at prestonwood in the children's ministry.

the thing about mrs. elizabeth is that she always made my job an "adventure" ;). she would pack my cart for every Sunday so that my teachers had all the resources and supplies they would need to teach their lessons and every Sunday morning was an adventure for me as i sorted through all the resource room fabulousness she left for me on my cart. some days i might find random puzzle pieces, a child's umbrella (no clue to this day about that one), random toys that had nothing to do with my lesson...the list really could go on and on. i'm telling you, every sunday morning...an adventure, to say the least :).

one of my favorite mrs. elizabeth stories was not funny to me at the time but looking back, i laugh every time i think about it. let me also take a moment to say that if a supply you requested was not on sale but something that could "pass for it" was on sale, well then, you would get the cheaper item (and often times, you wouldn't be able to use it). for one of our lesson activies one sunday i requested alpha bits cereal because the kids were going to eat it for a snack AND also use the cereal letters to spell out "JESUS." i didn't really pay attention to everything that was on the cart (it was overflowing, to say the least) and didn't notice that a certain cereal that was not alpha bits had been distributed to my classes. one of my teachers approached me in the hall (seeming quite frustrated) and said, "amy, i'm confused. we're supposed to spell out JESUS but all we have are O's...we have cheerios instead of alpha bits. do you want us to gnaw the O's into other letter shapes?" (she, of course, was kidding about that...it makes me laugh now...then, not so much laughter was going on.) so, i had to punt and come up with another way they could use cheerios to accomplish the point of the activity. the best part of the whole story is that when i confronted mrs. elizabeth about the error, she said, "well, if i'd known you wanted alpha bits, that would have been better because they were on sale." (just for clarification: i HAD requested alpha bits...several times and using several forms of communication.)

mrs. elizabeth made me laugh and sometimes caused a tad bit of frustration for me but she truly is a godly woman who loved the Lord with all her heart...you could see it in her face. i'm thankful for people God has allowed me to serve with and learn from...crazy carts and all.