prepping for perspectives

So far, it's been a really hectic morning. Todd and I ran to Pathmark to get cold cuts for dinner. We go in and ask them what's their cheapest meat and the deli clerk was like, "What kind?" We didn't care, we just wanted cheap meat. There were 2, ham and turkey. We look at each other and were like, okay, we'll take 10 lbs of the ham. The deli clerk was like "What?! Ten!?" Figuring that that was a little too much ham, we split it to 5 lbs of ham and 5 lbs of turkey, as if having 2 meats made it easier on the deli clerk. It took awhile, but we got all the meat.

We got back to church around 9 AM EST and we went to the sanctuary to have devotional time. I was there until 9:40 AM EST. I would have liked to stay longer, but there were other things that required my attention.

I called Tony to find out where he was and found out that he was up until 6:30 AM EST printing out the programs. He got about 2 hours of sleep before he had to leave for church.

There were still covers that needed to be printed. We tried photocopying the rest of the covers, but the photocopier still didn't like me and refused to copy. Mindy came up with a wonderful idea, to print Brian on a page by himself. His was the only profile that was on that page. It was a great idea and I was actually a bit ashamed that I hadn't thought of it myself.

We spent the next hour and a half stapling the programs that we could. 11:30 AM EST rolled around, and I let the kids break for lunch. Despite my protests, they decided to go to Applebee's. I knew that they would end up coming back late, but there was nothing I could do to stop them.

Tony and I ran to Burger King to pick up a quick lunch. There was still a lot more that we had to do to prepare for the show. After we got out food, we were heading up to the grange as we were shushed. I was under the impression that 4th service was over around 11:30 AM EST. I was really surprised that it was going on.

Apparantly, they were having some sort of event going on that was going to last till 3:30 PM EST. Again, thwarted by the failure to follow protocol. With everything that was happening, Tony and I were at the end of our ropes. I just kept repeating "O-M-F-G" over and over again as some of the adults shushed me. I opened the youth room so we could sit down and eat. In the meantime, Alan Fang would attempt to talk to the 4th service about moving.

This wasn't the first time there have been conflicts. And I wasn't really all the surprised about it. It's sad that this kind of thing happens so often that it's not a surprise when it does.

Luckily, Alan was able to convince them to move the santuary for the remainder of their program. Ming brought in the LCD projector and we frantically ran around trying to get things set up.

As expected, the kids came back late from Applebee's. We ushered them downstairs to change and get ready for our dress rehearsal at 1:00 PM EST. We didn't actually start the dress rehearsal till 1:30 PM EST and it was like pulling teeth to get them to pay attention. I had to yell at them over the PA to tell them to be quiet multiple times. There was still a lot of stuff that we had to discuss and go over, but a lot of the kids continued to have their side conversations.

The entire thing was just a huge fiasco. At least I looked good.