March 2, 2006

• Anna Does Prayer Meeting
  ((or, I swear I’m NOT Making This Up.))

  
  

  I have wanted to get my kids involved with AWANAs ever since they were born.  Of course, they can’t join until they’re five, and when Lydia turned five, we were in the middle of building/moving.  So there hasn’t been a good time to get involved.  Not to mention the fact that I have two littler ones to take into consideration, too.  But when I saw the red, green, yellow, and blue relay lines at this new church… okay, I got a little excited.  I loved being a Sparky when I was little.  I wanted Lydia to have the chance to be a Sparky, too.

  
  

  I’d talked to the pastor the night before on the phone – he’d said previously that he’d wanted to set up a time to get to know Brian and I… and I was geeked.  Falsely – A-Gain.  No mention of that ever again.  No suprise there.  No pastor has EVER followed thru with his word on things like that.  Anyhow, I’d asked him about if there were small groups at this church that we could plug into, and while they’re ‘experimenting’, it’s not open to the congregation yet… but they have Sunday School and a small group meeting on Wednesdays.  Grrrrrreat.  Okay.  Thanks.  Helpful.  Not.  Because I don’t do SS and don’t have a good vibe about Wednesday big group.

  
  

  So I still wanted to do AWANAs for the kids, even if it meant there wouldn’t be anything for me.  We met Brian for supper at McD’s (so he’d get to see the kids SOMETIME yesterday), and he took off for his dad’s to work in their shop, and I took the kids to church.  I had seen a sign on Lydia’s SS classroom that said “Gophers!” on it, but I didn’t realize that what this church does is not AWANA… it’s called “Word of Life”… and Lydia isn’t going to be a Sparky… she’s a Gopher.  Not entirely sure about this… Sparks are for Jesus – they’re Sparks to light the World.  What the HELL are gophers?  Besides possibly rabid?  Yeah.  Well…

  
  

  So there’s a 2′s and 3′s class… and we’re the first ones in there.  So I stick around with Isaac until the teacher shows up, and she turns out to be the pastor’s wife.  Who begins trying VERY hard to get us to come to the “Young Marrieds” Sunday School class that she and her husband teach.  “We split up!”  She says proudly.  “He teaches the men to be spiritual leaders, and I teach the women the 4 commands of a wife.”  What she doesn’t know is that I’m TOTALLY jaded about the topic, HATE it when couples are split apart in classes, and furthermore don’t go to Sunday School, because that’s WAY too long for the little ones to be at church in the morning.  It doesn’t work well.  We don’t do the Sunday School scene.  Then she tells me where to meet with the adults for ‘prayer meeting’.  PRAYER meeting?  Oi.  I’m not an advocate of corporate prayer.  Aside from the Lord’s supper (where He blessed the food), there is no record of Christ praying in or with a group.  It’s humiliating, puts focus on self… I think I blogged about this before.  Oi.

  
  

  Anyhow, so after a pit-stop at the library to return a book, I bring Ethan to the nursery.  There are four… erm, heftier women who’ve put their chairs in a 5×5 foot square and are doing the gossip thang.  I give them Ethan, GET A BEEPER, and tell them he’s just been changed and fed and should be fine.  And I go to find the prayer room.  On the way, Pastor spots me… and apparently thinks I need a buddy.  So he picks the nearest woman – this 50-something chicka, introduces me, and pretty much hands me over to her.  Hello, I’m 30, I think I can handle this… She sets us down in the SMACK DAB MIDDLE of the small room, and begins drilling me:  where are you from?  Are you married?  Do you have any kids?  Have you been to church here before?  If I weren’t a seasoned church-goer, I’d have NEVER gone back.  And EVERYONE around is is eavesdropping, you can see it – they’re smiling too wide and patronizingly.  And I hate people.  This is… awkward.  So after ten minutes of this, the service starts.  There aren’t more than 30 people there. We sing a few hymns off a program with no music.  They did sentence prayers (the leader told the congregation that praying out loud in a group was a large step upward in your walk.  I’m not so sure THAT’S Biblical…).  The Pastor had everyone open to Malachi and joked about how they MIGHT do more than one verse this week, and how they’ve been in this book half their lives.  This is so not my style.

  
  

  Suddenly, the door opens (keep in mind that I have a beeper) and this ear-piercing SCREAM fills the room.  Ethan.  And I’m in the smack dab MIDDLE of the room.  So after climbing over everyone known to man, I get to him.. and they say that he just won’t stop screaming.  That is SO NOT Ethan.  The moment they hand him to me, he’s smiling from ear to ear and cooing.  Wha….!?  So I try nursing him – he’s not thirsty.  I check his diaper – he’s dry and clean.  He’s having a ball chewing on my ink pen.  What the heck did they do…?!?  Incompetent.  The women in nursery obviously can’t handle a small child… or operate a beeper, for pity’s sake.  So I go to the nursery to drop off the beeper and get Ethan’s carseat… and they have SEVEN BABIES in a 5×5 foot square.  No wonder he was upset!  They wanted to be close to gossip, and didn’t make room for the babies to play.  Those poor little ones were crammed in a tiny space when there was a HUGE ROOM… and Ethan no doubt was freaked out by it.  ?!?!?!  I took his carseat and decided to take care of him myself.  Obviously I was NOT meant to do Wednesday group.  Not that I had a deep desire to, at this point.

  
  

  So I wandered around the church and got familiar with where everything was and played with Ethan on the way.  Kinda nice – since I only knew how to get to Isaac, Lydia, nursery, and the auditorium before.  Bible study ended, and everyone came out – and now I’ve apparently been re-named… from ‘new chick’ to ‘new chick with screaming baby’.  And everyone came over to be sure Ethan was okay… with their patronizing comments and too-big smiles.  Did I mention I REALLY don’t like people and would rather be left alone, thankyouverymuch?  So I fled.  To the nursing mothers room.  Which is really nice, btw.  I think next week I’ll bring a novel and some baby toys, and Ethan and I will just hang in there.

  
  

  “Hey, is your name Anna?”  I looked up and this old man is standing in the open doorway.  Yeeeeeah….  “You’re number 164.”  Wha?!  “Your library number.  You don’t have a number yet.”  Oh.  Thanks.  “Hey, you ain’t related to the W’s of Hastings, are you?”  Noooo… I’m married into the W’s of C-town… the big farm across from the new strip mall is my husband’s grandpa.  “No kidding… I saw him out on his tractor.”  I smiled, trying to be friendly.  A stretch for me, as you know.  Yep, my husband’s into the tractor thing, too.  DUMB thing to say to an old farmer… because I didn’t know it, but there were 35 more minutes before the kid’s classes were out, and “Howie” planned to spend all 35 of them talkin’ tractor to me.  Do you have ANY idea how long 35 minutes can be?  And I don’t care about or know about tractors.  I know we have an “H”, and that Deere’s are green/yellow, Internationals are red, Massey-Fergs are red-orange, Ellis-Chalmers are grey/orange and Fords are blue.  That’s it.  This man could PREACH on tractors.  And he did.  To me.  Pastor came by, tried to get a word in edgewise, and gave up and left.  I was trapped in the nursing mom’s room with a farmin’ fanatic.  Only. Me.  I’m telling you.  ONLY. ME.  He’s giddy about meeting Brian on Sunday morning, btw.  He has some GREAT tractor meets to suggest to him – even gave me a show brochure to the ‘best ‘un in the state’… and suggested we take a road trip to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa to the show he’d seen on TV (he has Dish, so he gets the Tractor channel.  !!!!!).  Yeah.  Like that.  It was… laughable, but I didn’t dare.  I wear black and leather, grew up around fighter jets and uniformed military men - do I look like the kind of chick who digs front-end hitches and well-pipe mufflers, balers and combines?! 

  
  

  So.  That was prayer meeting.  Next week I bring a novel, baby toys, and CLOSE THE DOOR and hang out in the nursing mothers room for a few hours.  LoL!!  Wha.  I’m… not churchy enough, I fear.  But for the kids…

  • 10:30 am
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