Taking the Scenic Route

Tears of happiness.  Seriously, this church is amazing. 

As is usual, Zach spent the entire time between leaving the service until he went to take a nap deconstructing the sermon, but he found more that he agreed with than disagreed.  That is a good thing.  He has determined that he really doesn’t like most of the church service besides the sermon (at any church), but the sermon is good enough to be worth the other stuff.  High praise from him.

The choke-back-tears came when we were enthusiastically offered the equivalent of a paraprofessional (something about Angel wings…didn’t retain the actual name yet) to go with Zane through at least the Sunday School, but I didn’t catch if they also go with them during Children’s Church or not. (but it wouldn’t surprise me).  What *I* heard when I heard that was that, for the first time since he was born, I will be able to attend a Sunday School class.  The person was excited to offer it too…they had recently designed the program and so far there was only one person using it, the daughter of the program designer.  (her child is a year younger than Zane and has Down Syndrome). 

Not only that, but another person at the church has started a program that provides Respite Care to the community once a month, and other churches are starting to participate to provide the same service on other weeks.  They staff it with licensed professionals leading some volunteers.  Can you imagine…4 hours where Zach and I can go out and do, whatever, without having to have my mom drive an hour.  The church is located right in the middle of “date” territory too…the nice theater we like is across the street, as is a huge bowling/game complex and a lot of nice restaurants.  Heck, we could just go back home and sit in a quiet house for a few hours if we didn’t have the money for an actual date.  That is so amazing.  I had heard of the service through other avenues, but hadn’t found out when/where, ect, and I assumed it was a service you paid for.  It isn’t.  Is is at no charge.  I could just cry. 

Other things I liked:  They had the kids looking up a verse in the bible, and the bible was NIV (my favorite) with a kid-friendly format.  (Called the Adventure Bible )  I was happy to see them trying to use an actual bible instead of just the story. (although the language used seemed really high level to me, but that could be because my “normal” is so different)  They also started the whole SS session with all the kids in a group singing a few songs.  That was nice too.  I didn’t recognize one of the songs, but I did recognize the other…it was a Raffi song.  We even have that song.  I don’t know all of the sign language they did with it, but I know some of it to teach him and I can ask the STs if I can’t figure all of it out.  It wasn’t signed exactly, just on key words, so that will help.

We have learned that Zach has to be the one to drop off Zora.  If I drop her off she throws a huge fit.  She takes a bit to warm up, snuggling with somebody for the first 5-10 minutes, then she is off to explore and play.  Today, when we went to pick her up after the last service, she was asleep.  *insert jaw drop here*  I was shocked.  Really, really shocked.  lol.