Last night was the AWANA Awards ceremony at our church.
We love the AWANA Club program and always look for a church that has it wherever we are. I would love for my children to complete the program through high school. We were blessed to find a church here in El Paso that has an excellent program. Two of the seniors last night won Citation awards for completing ten books in the program. They also received scholarships for Christian colleges.
This year was Jenny’s first year in Cubbies and she has loved it so much! She completed her book and was so excited to receive her awards.
She came right over to show me her bag with her award and other goodies. It was quite the task to keep her out of it through the rest of the program.
EA and MC completed their first year of T&T (Truth and Training).
EA was able to complete her book, but MC didn’t. She will be able to complete it through the summer or at the beginning of next year.
Sometimes it is a struggle with twins who are so very different from one another to try to keep them away from comparison. My heart hurt a little bit for MC because she didn’t complete her book and her sister did.
In some ways I wanted to push her to complete it and make her cram.
But that wouldn’t have been fair to her.
She had a great year and did a wonderful job.
She doesn’t have to compete with her sister.
It’s my job as their parent to teach them that and to help them to celebrate their differences.
MC came home very proud of her certificate of participation and Keith and I are so proud of her as well.
God has created each of my four children with unique differences. They all have different strengths and differences. I want to celebrate each of them for the person God has created them to be and avoid making them to be a cookie cutter version of one another.
And as hard as it may be, I want to allow them to fail.
That’s a hard thing to do as a parent.
But, it’s so necessary to teaching responsibility and resilience.
Will was just one week away from completing his Sparks book.
We had to miss the last week of AWANA because of being sick.
He may not have completed his entire book, but this little boy of mine has come so far this year!
He has blossomed as his teachers and especially the student leaders have invested in him and his spiritual growth.
This little boy who I have struggled with at times has become a delight to my heart!
The church treated the kids to popsicles after the awards ceremony and we all had a great time just hanging out with friends for a while.
We had a great year in AWANA and we’re already looking forward to another wonderful year doing AWANA at Coronado Baptist after a summer break.
Ashlee says
LOOOOOVE this post! We had Awana awards last night too <3 I have a cubbie (advancing to sparks next year) so cute to see them on stage.
Monica says
Thank you for visiting and commenting! Cubbies are the cutest! 🙂
I stopped by your Etsy shop and I love your princess playdresses. They are adorable!