Ten years ago, it all changed for us. It was ten years ago today that we met Madison for the first time, a seemingly small thing and yet so monumentally huge in our lives. It was the end of a battle, and the beginning of a happily ever after. It was a very long wait, and yet here we are ten years later.
Obviously it was a day we looked back on all kinds of photographs, and told all kinds of memories. To help with that, Daddy has been reading the journal we kept when we went to China. What an adventure it all was! We shared a lot of our photos on social media, sharing them with our friends who also went to China that year, and the memories and stories were amplified. It was a wonderful, wonderful day ten years ago, with so many emotions tied to it. All of them were good!
Today was another day of the Forward Conference, of course, and another day of busy work for the church. It is all good, and of course once this is all over with, things calm down significantly for the remainder of July.
Daddy is going to speak at KidPak tomorrow, and it will be the last of the "Incredible Heroes" messages, one on baby Jack-Jack. Ironic, given the baby news of the day for Daddy: tomorrow is the ten-year mark of the actual official adoption. We'll be talking about "Incredible Potential," and it will be very special.
Tonight we were able to watch a movie with Madison - she's been so into the "X-Men" lately. We've been reading the old comics that Daddy has been bringing up. One by one, we're reading them, although we've got a LONG ways to go on those: currently, we're at the point where Omega Red has returned, along with Sabretooth, giving the Blue Team a hard time. Tonight we watched "X-Men: Apocalypse," which was a better movie than it was given credit for. This might be because Daddy was so familiar with all these comic book stories and characters, so you'll have to give me some forgiveness there. We hit the mute button on a couple lines, because we knew they were coming. It seems these later X-Men and Wolverine movies (that are PG-13) are required by Fox to have one obligatory "queen mother of all curse words" in them. It is so forced, and so not cool. It doesn't fit, it doesn't make anyone laugh, and it's just frankly stupid. I remember a lot of movies from the nineties had this trend. You wanted to have a movie PG-13, and the movie could only have one usage of this word in there somewhere, and so it was like a little bomb the producers placed in there, right in the midst of an otherwise decent movie. And you're left scratching your head, because it is so out of place and so unnecessary. Anyway, slight rant over. We hit the mute button, because Daddy knows where these are, and we're good.
Speaking of unnecessary language, we don't watch the Deadpool movies at all of course. But Daddy does have a lot of those comics from the nineties. For giggles, we looked up their value today, and that was a pleasant surprise. This was back when that comic wasn't so vulgar, so we might get around to reading those together.
ANYWAY, it's what Madison was wanting to watch tonight. We finished up with the X-Men movies, because she's been asking about each one, wanting to know each character and so forth. She's really wanting to know when Gambit will appear in a movie, as she leans towards his character right now in the comic. Who doesn't, though? He's one of daddy's favorites too. We don't talk about that Gambit in the Wolverine movie, because we generally don't talk about that movie. Yikes.
It's been a good day today. It's been a busy one, but it's been pretty nice. Daddy finished his message tonight for tomorrow, and I guess we'll end with that. I repeat something from a few years ago, but it does seem to fit a bit, and it's a good point. I think it will be an incredible message!
KidPak Adventures: Incredible Heroes
“Jack-Jack”
CUE TRACK 1: THE INCREDIBLES
CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES
HOST: “Hello everyone and welcome back to this, the very last day of our series Incredible Heroes.”
HOST: “Before going on much longer, I wanted to share just a little something with you about today. It’s a big deal for my family, because ten years ago yesterday, we met our daughter for the first time.”
CUE SLIDE: “GOTCHA DAY”
HOST: “Yesterday was the first day we met our daughter Madison. I can’t even begin to describe to you the emotions of that day. Mommy is there in that picture, and she had been going through chemotherapy and radiation, all to fight stage three cancer. It was close to being stage four, it was that bad. And while that was going on, adoptions in China were slowing down, and we were told we had a three year waiting period. And yet it all timed out. Mommy recovered and healed just enough that we could make this trip to China. You’re seeing it there in this picture. We won, because God was with us every step of the journey. The next day – and that’s ten years ago today – is what made it official.”
CUE SLIDE: “BUBBLES”
HOST: “Ten years ago today we signed papers and pledged pledges, and made it official. Ten years ago, we adopted Madison into our family, and I don’t know where to start when trying to describe these past ten years – other than this: it’s been a happily ever after.”
CUE SLIDE: “INCREDIBLE HEROES”
HOST: “There is so much potential in a little child like that. Think of it: all the great heroes of the Bible started out as little children just like that. And there’s still so much potential – not just in her, but in you. Let’s look at that bottom line, one more time.”
CUE SLIDE: “You’ve got incredible potential.”
HOST: “You’ve got incredible potential. And there’s another baby right there, one that’s certainly full of potential. I mean, he’s already got so many super powers. He can teleport, shoot lasers out of his eyes, turn into a human torch, float through the air, and turn into a humungo baby! He could become the greatest hero ever.”
CUE SLIDE: “INCREDIBLE HEROES”
HOST: “But so can you! Okay, sure, you don’t have lasers coming out of your eyes. But if you focus on the right things, you can become an incredible hero. Look at this picture of Jack Jack here.”
CUE SLIDE: “JACK-JACK GLOWING EYES”
HOST: “He’s about to zap someone or something with his eyes! But look closer – look how intent he is at looking at something. He’s got vision for sure, and that’s your first point right there. Let’s take a look.”
CUE SLIDE: “YOU NEED VISION”
HOST: “You need vision. We’re all spending all our time focusing on something, and sometimes it’s something fun like video games or the latest superhero movie. But if we want to stay on the right path, we have to focus on the right things. What are the right things? So glad you asked! Let’s take a look at what Paul tells us to focus on.”
CUE SLIDE: “PHILIPPIANS 4:8”
HOST: “Finally, my brothers and sisters, always think about what is true. Think about what is noble, right and pure. Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect. If anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those kinds of things.”
CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES
HOST: “In today’s world, it’s easy to become distracted. The other day, my daughter was showing me this amazing Minecraft mansion she was building, and I was like, ‘okay, sure.’ And then I looked at it, and I’m like, ‘What? That thing is huge! How long did this take you?’ She’s been working on it for a long time now, block by block, staying focused on it. And that’s how anything in life is. If you want it bad enough, you have to stay focused, and not distracted. And that’s why Paul was telling us to focus on the big picture. Because we’re all building something great for God. Incredibly great!”
HOST: “So I started thinking about Jack-Jack some more, and I thought of another one of his powers: he can turn into this crazy monster thing. When Syndrome starts threatening Jack-Jack’s family, all of the sudden, he turns into this.”
CUE SLIDE: “ANGRY JACK-JACK”
HOST: “Relax. I know this is how you feel inside when people start messing with your family. It’s how I start feeling too.”
CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES
HOST: “We get passionate about things, don’t we? We get all crazy about something sometimes. If I were to ask some of you about this game Fortnite, you’d spend forever telling me about your adventures. Or if you were to ask me and Pastor Lance to get into a discussion about who is better, Avengers or Dark Knight, it usually takes a while. We’re really into certain things, aren’t we?”
HOST: “Well, that’s what we need as well. It’s your second point.”
CUE SLIDE: “YOU NEED PASSION”
HOST: “You need passion. There’s another scripture that Paul gave us that perfectly describes what I’m talking about. Here it is.”
CUE SLIDE: COLOSSIANS 3:23
HOST: “Work at everything you do with all your heart. Work as if you were working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Colossians 3:23 NIRV
CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES
HOST: “Ultimately, we areworking for the Lord. Sure, your teacher asked you to do something, and your teacher is the one giving the grade. But God is watching too. And your Bible tells us if you want to succeed, you’ve got to do your best with what you have. And if you can be trusted with a little, God will bless you with more and more. No matter what you’re doing, do it with passion. Like a game of Fortnite or an argument about Avengers vs. Dark Knight!”
HOST: “There’s a lot of different super powers Jack-Jack has, especially in this last movie, but there’s one more I wanted to show you. How many remember when he did this?”
CUE SLIDE: FLAMING JACK-JACK
HOST: “He’s on fire! Literally! He shoots flames, and don’t worry, he seems to be having the time of his life there.”
CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES
HOST: “But yes, you have a fire within you as well. It’s the Holy Spirit, if you’ll invite Him in. He’s the most important thing you need if you want to do great things. Let’s look at our third and final point.”
CUE SLIDE: “YOU NEED GOD”
HOST: “You need God. I want to share one last scripture with you, this time from the words of Jesus himself.”
CUE SLIDE: “JOHN 15:5”
HOST: ““I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain joined to me, and I to you, you will bear a lot of fruit. You can’t do anything without me.’ This is the part I really want you to focus on, right here.”
CUE SLIDE: YOU CAN DO NOTHING WITHOUT ME
HOST: “You can do nothing without me. Let’s remind ourselves of this, out loud. Say this with me, ‘You can do nothing without Jesus.’”
Let audience respond.
CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES
HOST: “I’m going to close with this one story, and it’s all true. The Fourth of July is coming up, and I thought I’d repeat a patriotic story I’ve always loved sharing. You see in the sixties, our nation was focused on getting to the moon first. This was an incredible achievement, something no one ever thought possible. A man walking on the moon? It was in 1969 that the Apollo 11 did just that. We somehow got this small craft to the moon, and two guys stepped out onto the surface, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Lightyear.”
CUE SLIDE: “BUZZ LIGHTYEAR”
HOST: “Okay, it wasn’t Buzz Lightyear. But did you know the character Buzz Lightyear was named after the astronaut Buzz Aldrin?”
CUE SLIDE: “BUZZ ALDRIN ON THE MOON”
HOST: “There he is on the surface of the moon, the American flag proudly standing behind him. After years of research, tests, brave astronauts, sacrifice, passion, vision, and all of it… we finally made it to the moon on July 20, 1969. America did it first! But did you want to know what Buzz Aldrin read out loud, before they even stepped out onto the moon?”
HOST: “Put that scripture up again, please.”
CUE SLIDE: JOHN 15:5
HOST: “It’s that same scripture: ‘I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain joined to me, and I to you, you will bear a lot of fruit. You can’t do anything without me.’”
CUE SLIDE: INCREDIBLE HEROES
HOST: “You can have all the vision and passion you want, but without Jesus in the mix, you have nothing. And that’s what we pray here at KidPak, because we do our very best and we work very hard. But we know it, and you know it: without Jesus, we are nothing. Without Jesus, our country is nothing. Without Jesus, our church is nothing. Without Jesus, our lives are nothing.”
HOST: “As we close, perhaps you feel that nothing yourself. The reason is because you need Jesus in your life. And if that’s the case, right after service I’d like to invite you to talk to one of your teachers or pastors about it. Because trust me, I know what it’s like to feel like nothing. But I also know what it’s like to have Jesus in my life, and I know you can too. Because with Him at your side, nothing is impossible, from going to the moon to defeating cancer and going halfway around the world to adopt a little girl. Whatever dream has been dropped into your spirit, it’s all possible, because with Jesus, you have incredible potential.”
HOST: “Let us pray.”
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