The Colley House » Service

Mama’s K.I.S.S. Number 15 – Signature Recipes

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 24-01-2012

Tags: Mama's KISS, Parenting, Recipe, Service

One of the most requested topics this year on my speaking circuit has been a lesson in which I list a hundred ideas for training our kids to be servants. Service oriented kids grow up to be productive adult servants in the kingdom and it’s those people to whom the Lord will say, “Come ye blessed of my Father,” according to Matthew 25. So it matters if I’m making a real effort, as a mom, to put the heart of a servant in my child. For this reason, I’ve decided to devote a post, every now and then, to a service suggestion—a simple idea for moms to make their homes busy service centers for young hearts and hands. I’d love to hear from those of you who try them. So here goes:

Signature Recipes

If you have a child who is seven years old or above, I hope you have taught him or her to make something to share from your kitchen. What I found to be very efficient when bringing up Caleb and Hannah was to really get them very adept at one or two super easy recipes. It helps if you let them choose to learn to make things they love to eat. That way it’s not a chore to coax them into the kitchen, particularly if you promise to let them lick the bowl or save a bit of the treat back for their desserts after supper. Below are a few of the favorite kid-friendly recipes from the Colley house. The possibilities are endless about how to share the blessings once your kids get cooking. The monkey bread wreaths are great holiday gifts for Bible class teachers. The dessert is a favorite when the youth group is coming over for a devotional or when you are having someone in for a Bible study or when a new neighbor moves in down the street. (Be sure to attach an invitation to your congregation’s services.) The macaroni and cheese is a hit for fellowship meals or taking to a mom with a new baby, especially if she has some older children to feed. And, of course, the cookies make great VBS snacks or take-along gifts when your children go to read the Bible to an elderly person. The best part about signature recipes is that, once you train your kids to make them and clean up the mess, you can keep the ingredients on hand and just send the kids into the kitchen at a moment’s notice whenever the need arises, even if it’s one of those days when you, personally, are out of pocket or very short on time. Notice that one of these recipes doesn’t even require turning on the stove. So…get cooking!

Hannah’s Signature Recipes:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dessert

1 pkg. Chips Ahoy Cookies
1 medium tub of Cool Whip
1 cup milk

Pour the milk in a bowl and dip enough of the cookies to cover the bottom of your serving dish. Cover this with a layer of cool whip. Repeat till all used up (ending with cool whip) except a couple of cookies. Crumble these cookies and sprinkle on top. YUM!

Hannah’s Macaroni and Cheese

4 c. cooked and drained macaroni noodles
½ c. milk
3 TBSP butter
½ c. cream cheese
1 ½ c. shredded cheddar cheese
3 TBSP sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all these ingredients in a big bowl while the cooked noodles are still piping hot. You can put it in the oven and bake for a few minutes if you want, BUT my favorite right from the bowl I mixed all this in!

Caleb’s Signature Recipes

Monkey Bread
¾ c. sugar
2-3 tsp cinnamon
2 large cans biscuits
1 stick butter

Cut biscuits into quarters. Combine sugar and cinnamon in bowl. Add quartered biscuits and shake till well coated. Drop in grease round pan and add 1 stick of melted butter on top. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or till golden brown. (Caleb made this in a Bundt type pan and so it came out as a wreath. He then would sprinkle green sugar or red and green sprinkles on the top and make a wreath to take to people at Christmas time. Sometimes he would put red hots and a green sprig at the bottom for a bow. You could do this, of course, any time of year using candy corn for fall or jellybeans for spring, etc…)

Honey’s Peanut Butter Cookies

½ cup peanut butter
1 stick margarine
½ cup brown sugar
½ c. white sugar
1 beaten egg
1 cup flour
½ tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt

Cream first four ingredients. Then add the rest. Chill this dough (or not, if you can’t wait!). Roll dough in marble sized balls. Mash with bottom of glass that has been dipped in sugar. (350 for 10-12 minutes)

Mama’s K.I.S.S. Number 14 – Nursing Home Singing

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 19-12-2011

Category : Bless Your Heart

Tags: Mama's KISS, Parenting, Service

Nursing Home Singing

Only six more Christmas caroling, candy cane crunching, cookie cutting, Claus kissing, Kris Kringling days left. If you haven’t started being good yet, it might be too late. But still, it’s worth a try.

This is a great time of year to take your children to sing for nursing home patients. You don’t have to have a group. You can just practice singing a couple of songs with your kids (Your repertoire works best if it’s familiar. My kids did a lot of “You are my Sunshine” for older people.) Then dress your children up and take them to a couple of rooms in the local nursing home and ask the residents if they’d like a song. You can even take them to the desk and ask if it would be okay for your kids to sing to the residents who are sitting in the lobby. This is a win-win activity. I have yet to meet the nursing home resident who didn’t like this. But, of course, the big winners are the children you take. They get the joy that comes from giving of themselves. They get the advantage of overcoming stage fright in this very small venue before it even threatens to limit their service. They may meet people who, though weak or crippled in body, are wise in spirit. Best of all, they will become accustomed to the smells and sounds of nursing homes at such young ages that they will be comfortable as the years go by serving in this environment where much service is needed and where Christians have daily opportunities to glorify God. They will develop the ability to be at ease with people who have diseased bodies and with those who have forms of dementia. All of this will make them better servants with more compassion. They will find it easier to be like our Father, who is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34).

Maybe you can make the time to put little Santa hats on your children and go sing this week. But, if not, be sure to plan to do it at some point in the new year (not the Santa hats…just the singing). I can promise you a very receptive audience at any time of year.

Mama’s K.I.S.S. Number 13 — Read to the Elderly

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 05-12-2011

Category : Bless Your Heart

Tags: Mama's KISS, Parenting, Service

Read to the Elderly

From one of the service ideas from the great Lads to Leaders program was born the idea that Hannah, our youngest, would go and read different books of the Bible to Mrs. Umstedt. Mrs. Umstedt was elderly, lived only a few houses down from us, needed the gospel and was thrilled when Hannah asked her if she could come once a week and read the scriptures to her. This sweet German immigrant claimed many things about their meetings: She said she looked forward to them with great joy. She said was learning things she was glad to know. She said she was able to hear the scriptures perfectly even from the small voice that was delivering them.

But we all know the truth. Because Mrs. Umstedt never obeyed the gospel, to our knowledge, Hannah was the one who got the lion’s share of blessings from these expeditions down the street with Bible in hand. Mrs. Umstedt had cookies, but Mrs Umstedt also offered her joy in sharing the scriptures, confidence in talking about them, the chance to prioritize and behave responsibly about Bible study with a neighbor, and the satisfaction that comes with knowing you have done your best for your God.

Even if you don’t have a Mrs. Umstedt right there on your street, I bet she lives somewhere within an easy drive. I became so very comfortable with Hannah being at Mrs. Umstedt’s that, one Wednesday night, just after services had started in our congregation, I looked over at the spot near the front where Hannah usually sat. She wasn’t there, so I began to look around to see where she could be sitting. I was panicking a bit, when I realized I had forgotten to pick her up from Mrs. Umstedt’s house on my way to the building! Leaving everything right there on the pew, I rushed right down the center aisle and right out the back door during the invitation song. You can imagine what sorts of things were running through my husband’s mind as he was hoping people would be coming the other direction down the aisle. The ushers in the foyer were also a little perplexed until I said, “Hannah!…I forgot to bring Hannah!”

Just about the time I got out of the building and the congregation sat down, my phone began to ring incessantly, because Hannah had also discovered that she was missing worship. And my phone was in that purse on that pew near the front. And, then there was also my husband who was, by this time, trying to address the church from the podium. At last, he made a comment—not a mean comment, but a funny one–probably something about the phone with the everlasting ring…and how much that looks like it is coming “from my wife’s purse’” and “where did my wife go, anyway?”

I forgot her. Can’t believe it, but I did. I guess if a little girl is ever going to be absent from Wednesday Bible study, this is about the best circumstance I can think of. But I still don’t recommend it. If you want to grow conviction in the Word in your children, I do have a recommendation, though. Arrange ways for them to personally share it in non-threatening situations before the devil gets the chance to make their stomachs feel queasy and their knees knock at the thought of a personal Bible study. Reading to the elderly is a great start. Sometimes a child can understand more about sharing the word than the aged!

I understand more than the aged,

for I keep your precepts.

I hold back my feet from every evil way,

in order to keep your word.

I do not turn aside from your rules,

for you have taught me.

How sweet are your words to my taste,

sweeter than honey to my mouth!

(Psalm 119:100-103)

Mama’s K.I.S.S. Number 12 – The Never-Say-No Rule

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 14-11-2011

Category : Bless Your Heart

Tags: Mama's KISS, Parenting, Service

The Never-Say-No Rule

Recently after speaking about this one, I got an email from a mom who just could not understand how I could ever make this rule at my house. “If you never say “no” to any of the good opportunities presented, will you not just go stark, raving mad?” she protested.

The never say no rule is not for faithful adults. It’s true. If I said “yes” to every opportunity presented, even in the church, I would not be productive. I would be insane. But it’s different for kids.

As Caleb and Hannah were growing up, we had the never-say-no rule. It started very early (as soon as they could say the word “yes”, which, as with all kids, came a while after they could say the word “no”). It was hard and fast. Unless they were sick or it was humanly impossible for them to honor any request made of them for public service in the church. or individual responsibility in the body, they just automatically said “yes”. This started so early that they could never even remember having a choice. I know some will argue that choice is a vital part of Christianity from the heart. I agree. But I also think early training for proper choices is beneficial to the molding of the heart that chooses Christ. Getting comfortable in certain public and private roles at a very young age–before the shyness, reservations, and inhibitions set in–is a plus later on. Glenn and I still believe it was the right thing for our kids. We didn’t coax Caleb into song leading when he was twelve. He was chomping at the bits to do this because he was invited and complied long before that. We didn’t give our kids a choice about whether or not they were going to the nursing home on Sunday afternoon for the services, because the “rule” had already decided that. They never got to a stage of hating to be around that nursing home smell or being embarrassed by nursing home indiscretions. If Hannah was asked to pick up the communion cups after worship on Sunday, she didn’t have to think about it. Unless there was a real reason for declining–a true inability–any assigned job or requested action for the church was just performed in auto-pilot.

Of course, there has come a time when both kids have come to the same point of inundation as their parents; the point at which all Christians have to weigh opportunities and choose which ones can feasibly be accomplished and which might be more efficient for Him. I think probably that inundation is due, at least in part, to the never-say-no rule. Figuring out which opportunities to grab–well, that’s a good problem to have. It’s just a proven fact: saying “yes” to opportunities, good ones or bad ones, brings more of the same.

Of course we didn’t do this or anything else flawlessly. Of course, we had our slip-ups, our discouraging days and our times of falling before the Father and pleading for parenting wisdom. Of course, we made poor decisions that wrought havoc along the way. The purpose of the Mama’s K.I.S.S. series is to throw out the good ideas that might help kids develop servant hearts. Looking back, we think this was one rule that served the kids well. I guess it was really God’s idea first: “To him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it’s sin” (Jas. 4:17)

Mama’a K.I.S.S. Number 11 – Make for Missions

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 03-11-2011

Category : Bless Your Heart

Tags: Mama's KISS, Missions, Parenting, Service

Make for Missions

I hope your congregation has a hands-on type view of foreign missions. By that I mean that representatives from your eldership and some of your members actually go to the sites and see for themselves what’s going on. This approach is a great idea for at least two reasons. The first reason is that your elders will be sure that the money you are sending, as a church, is being appropriated properly–that sound doctrine is being taught by faithful stewards. The second is that those faithful missionaries need your visits to encourage and bless them as they strive to spread the borders of the kingdom in those difficult areas.

And when they do go, there is a great opportunity for your kids to participate in the good that’s going on. Suppose your kids were to make cards to go in the suitcases of the traveling brethren. Imagine an elders’ wife sneaking your kids’ cards of encouragement in the luggage of the traveling elder for him to find when he gets to the foreign land. Or what if your kids made a card for the foreign congregation to go on the bulletin board there? Suppose they included pictures of the children in your church for the kids there to see on that bulletin board? It can do more good than you know–on both ends.

Maybe your children are artistic and would like to make book marks or beaded bracelets or refrigerator magnets for your representative to hand out to members in the foreign church. Maybe you have a teenager who could even crochet a baby blanket to send over for the expecting preacher’s wife in your mission field. Perhaps your son could make up a few bags of candy for the children in a particular class in that tiny foreign church. The ideas are endless. The items you suggest to your children just need to be very small and very lightweight, since the recent imposed charges for extra luggage on flights have taken effect.

At West Huntsville, our elders go to Ukraine, Colombia, Argentina, and India. Bookmarks will be going to Argentina in January and then, later on in 2012 hand-crocheted scarves will be headed to the freezing Ukraine. I know both will be welcomed. The children in your church or family could just write colorful little notes of encouragement for the missionary family and fold them up to fit in a zippy bag in the traveling luggage. Then, after the representative arrives in the foreign country he could put the notes in a “happy jar” (purchased there to avoid breakage and save weight in travel) for the mission family and tell them to draw out a note each day and unfold it and read it aloud at their family devotionals. You could even try to have enough notes to provide one for every single day between visits by the Americans. (If your work is in a country where there is a language difference, you could find a translator to staple the translation to each of these little notes, but be sure you go ahead and send the original writing and/or artwork of each child, as well.)

The mission families will be blessed. But there will be a blessing just as big in your home, too!

PS. If you live in the Ellijay, Ga. area, you can go hear Hannah Giselbach speak on purity to moms and teens at the Ellijay Church of Christ (hlcolley@gmail.com for info) or, if you live in the Huntsville, AL area, hear Peggy Coulter at Mastin Lake Road (sparksremarks@hotmail.com for info). You’ll be blessed at either.

Mama’s K.I.S.S. Number 10 – Missionary Letters

Posted by Web Admin | Posted on 13-10-2011

Category : Bless Your Heart

Tags: Children, Mama's KISS, Parenting, Service

Missionary Letters

One of our favorite family Bible time activities as the kids were growing up was to communicate with our missionaries. I would strongly encourage moms who would love for their kids to grow up and carry the gospel to the lost to “adopt” a family missionary. Choose someone (preferably in a foreign country, because this is exciting for children) who will be willing to answer your children’s letters in a fairly timely way. It’s especially beneficial if you can pick someone who has children, so the missionary’s children can have input in the return letters and so that your kids can develop fun relationships with them. It’s also important that you let your young children write these letters in their own hands. You can write for the preschoolers as they dictate and then help them sign their names. Take your kids to the post office with you to find out how much postage to put on the letter and let them drop it in the big blue box.

Our family chose a family in Kenya, Africa. It would be hard to assess the impact this mostly written relationship across the continents had on my kids. It wasn’t hard for Caleb and Hannah to think of questions they wanted to ask. They asked about foods and were amazed to find out that this mom in Kenya had to make her own corn chips from corn meal. They asked about school and learned about private education in Meru. They asked about weather and learned that the house their friends lived in stayed pretty muddy all through the rainy season. They loved looking at the colorful stamps on the postcards or envelopes. In short, they looked forward to letters from Africa. I think the family in Kenya with whom we were corresponding probably looked forward to them, too. My children still have some of these letters in their childhood scrapbooks. You should put them on the frig and on bulletin boards in kids’ rooms and retire them finally to places of safe keeping.

When this family came to do a tour visiting congregations in the States, they contacted our family to borrow clothes from Hannah for one of their daughters to wear to the various churches they visited. They explained that there was just so much they could bring and, since they knew Han was the perfect size, they knew this would work. Wonderful! How much fun for Hannah to pick out some of her best clothes for her friend to wear while visiting!

It was the love of the work of the Lord there and in all mission points that was the big bonus resulting from this correspondence. Both Caleb and Hannah have now had chances to work on foreign soil. Hannah has married a man who is hungry to work on foreign soil. They very well may one day live on a distant shore. Now, you may be thinking, “Cindy Colley is nuts. Who wants to raise kids who want to move around the planet to raise her grandkids?”

The answer is quite honestly…not me….Unless it means that souls who might otherwise not know the gospel will know….Unless it means that somebody else’s grandchildren might not have to experience eternal Hell….Unless it means that my chances of sitting around the throne of God with my kids on THAT distant shore might be enhanced. Life is short. Eternity is…well, eternal. Whatever it is that you can do to plant eternity in the hearts of your kids, you should do it…tonight…in your Family Bible Time.