So if you noticed an unusual amount of happy mommies around town last week, it wasn't a coincidence, Tuesday was the first Westgate Chapel MOPS meeting of 2013-2014! The excitement and energy in the MOPS room is always a highlight for me. Whether you were hugging friends you missed over the summer or looking around anxiously for kind faces, or possibly searching for the coffee and creamer like I was, I offered three words to you: You made it! You managed to get everyone out of the house and to Westgate “early” in the day. The children were placed in the appropriate loving care of someone other than you! The next 2 hours of our meeting were designed for you to enjoy time apart from your sweet darlings and embark on a year-long journey together of community, support and encouragement.
After a delicious breakfast, I briefly introduced our theme for this year, “A Beautiful Mess... Embrace Your Story.” Moms live in messes. The toys, crumbs, and spit-up are our natural surroundings. Moms often feel like a mess. We are exhausted, under-showered, and hormonal. Our past and present circumstances and decisions can leave us feeling inadequate of love and without a purpose. A Beautiful Mess — Reminds us moms that beauty can come out of our difficult spots. The grime of mothering young children brings the beauty of motherhood. The bruises of life can bring redemption. Embrace Your Story — Reminds us moms that our past, present and future can be used for good. God knows where each of us has been, where we are today and has set in motion where we are headed.
Next we introduced the Leadership Team for this year. We are all here to serve you and make your MOPS experience the best we can, so please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions or suggestions.
Coordinator - Sheralee Cochran
Assistant Coordinator - Kristine Manz
MOPPETS Coordinator - Hally Thorp
DGL Coordinator - Tifani Hoornstra
Registration - Emily Hoornstra
Finance - Heidi Conklin
Blog - Lisa Barton
Creative Activities - Kristina Udodik
Leadership Mentor - Wendy Carroll
No kick-off meeting would be complete without some ridiculous ice breaker, so I hope we did not disappoint with our rousing game of “Would You Rather: Mom Edition.” I just love that we could all be in a “mess” together choosing which is best: engorged breasts or incontinence? I’m also fairly certain I scratched my head all day after trying to decide if I’d rather have lice or a stomach virus run through our home. How funny and sad that we could all relate to these wonderful moments of motherhood.
Hopefully, you all received a MOPS handbook in the mail just before the meeting. If you did not, please let Emily know when you arrive at the next meeting and she can get you a copy. Although we only covered the highlights in our trivia game, this little gem of a book will answer most of the questions you may have about how MOPS works. We have tried to cover most everything including: breakfast, MOPPETS, meeting dates, Moms and Tots, snow closures and more! I could probably write a whole posting just about the handbook, but what fun would that be?
Lastly, we did a simple yet adorable craft lead by Kristina. Since part of our theme this year is “Embrace Your Story,” we thought it would be appropriate to make journals for you to write down your thoughts, dreams, memories, whatever part of your story you wish. I’ll admit that journaling scares me to death, because I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to write about. Oodles of deep, soul baring words are not just about to burst out of me and onto paper at any given moment. I realize there are moms out there capable of this, but if you are like me and at a loss for what to say, we are going to be posting some journaling prompts to help you on the blog.
While I’m talking about the blog, I do want to urge you to stay connected to what’s happening at Westgate Chapel MOPS. You can do that by liking our page on Facebook so that our updates will appear in your newsfeed. We would also love for you to subscribe to our blog at westgatechapelmops.blogspot.com. By subscribing, you will receive an email when we have new information posted to the blog, which will happen about once a week. Also, if you have questions that you aren’t sure who to ask, you can always reach us at EdmondsMOPS@gmail.com. We hope that you want to be connected with us and much as we want to connect with you!
I’m already looking forward to our next meeting on October 8th. We have more food, fun and fellowship in store for you. We will have a special guest speaker, Anne Marie Canlis, coming to share with us about the importance of family meals. And because most of us moms can’t get enough, we will have our first official table discussion time! So much good stuff planned for this year! Our hope is that your experience at MOPS this year will be filled with laughter, encouragement, compassion, and friendship as we come together as Mothers of Preschoolers.
--Kristine Manz
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