All posts tagged: #chickendance

Welcome Rolling Hills MOPS!

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Hello New Friends! I was happy to be with you this morning at Rolling Hills Church. I love the way you’ve chosen to meet together to hold each other up in the tender season of parenting young children. I hope my stories were not burdensome to you. I pray that little seeds of hope and compassion were planted in your hearts. And please remember, you are already doing compassion every day. Here are a few highlights and reminders: Moms, you are already Compassion Experts (read more here). If my messy family can practice Compassion, yours can too (read more here). You might think you have Nothing, but God can make it Something (read more here). For more about our family’s very first Compassion experiment, there’s our 2010 Haiti story (read more here). If you don’t believe that I actually dressed up as a Chicken and did the Chicken Dance at the bus stop  because I love my daughter and the children of Haiti, here’s the evidence: My Chicken Dance at G’s bus stop: Aimee at the Bus Stop Video Haiti Partner’s video back to us: Beautiful video from Haiti Partners Children’s …

Welcome Alameda MOPS!

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Hello New Friends! I was honored to be with you this morning at Bay Farm Church. I was deeply touched by the way you gather together to hear, encourage, and celebrate each other. I hope my stories were not burdensome to you. I pray that little seeds of hope and compassion were planted in your hearts. And please remember, you are already doing compassion every day. Here are a few highlights and reminders: Moms, you are already Compassion Experts (read more here). If my messy family can practice Compassion, yours can too (read more here). You might think you have Nothing, but God can make it Something (read more here).  If you don’t believe that I actually dressed up as a Chicken and did the Chicken Dance at the bus stop  because I love my daughter and the children of Haiti, here’s the evidence: My Chicken Dance at G’s bus stop: Aimee at the Bus Stop Video Haiti Partner’s video back to us: Beautiful video from Haiti Partners Children’s Academy All of us dancing together in Haiti: Chicken Dance All Together …

Welcome, New Friends!

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Many of you are visiting here today because you heard me on Ali Eastburn’s Heroes of Generosity podcast. It posted on Tuesday, 10/20/15, and I’m humbled to be a part of it. If you haven’t heard it yet, you can hear the podcast directly on Ali’ Eastburn’s website. (It will be on iTunes, soon, too.) We talk about family, generosity, compassion, and the crazy things we do for love. We laughed a lot during the interview and I hope you’ll laugh along with us as you run errands, commute to work, do the dishes, or work out. Ali Eastburn is World Changer. Eight years ago she heard God asking if she might be willing to sell her wedding ring to give an entire village clean water. That radical generosity birthed a movement and the organization With This Ring. Over a hundred water wells have been built around the world because people sold their wedding rings, heirloom jewelry, and chose not to have fancy weddings so others might have their first taste of clean water. Please listen to Ali’s …

The Haiti Chicken Dance

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Greta and I walked to the bus stop this morning. She was tired and cross and refused soft hugs. We waited in silence under the bright stars. After a minute she reached for my hand and I squeezed it tight. The bus pulled up. She let me hug her twice and said, “just a very small Chicken Dance today, Mama” before climbing up the steps and watching me out the window. The last time I flapped my wings we were high in the mountains of Haiti. Greta and I did the Chicken Dance with the students, teachers, and community at the Haiti Partners Children’s Academy. Here are some pictures: Here’s the video! https://youtu.be/Icbti-SXILM Never in a million years would I have dreamed up this silly story. I’ve been laughing and shaking my head about it for almost 2 months. I dance in the dark at my daughter’s bus stop. I pledge to do it in a chicken suit and let it be recorded if people donate to Haiti Partners. Over $10,500 is donated! Greta and I fly to …

Bad Dancing

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I am not a good dancer. I thought I was. As a girl I would leap down the hallway and imagine my outstretched legs were parallel with the floor. I was a swan, a deer, a sugar plum fairy. I did the positions and barre work in class, but my favorite was always the free dance at the beginning. The classical music would crescendo and I just knew I would be discovered. The teacher would gasp and say, “Aimée! You’re a star! Darling, you’re just too good for the rest of us.” Instead one day I was really going for it, spinning and leaping, imagining the stage, and the teacher said, “Aimee. That is NOT ballet. Enough. Please come to the barre.” I lowered my chin and joined the class. From then on, that woman, and ballet, were dead to me. When it came time to sign up for the next session my mom pointed above the desk, “The sign says, ‘We Dance for Joy!’ Do you dance for joy?” Flat and resolute I said, “No. I …

Chickening Out

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We moved to Georgia this summer. I’m not going to lie, it’s been pretty bad. Swampy, sweaty, constant heat. Unexpected, urgent home repairs. Money flying out the window. Three inch bugs strolling across the floor. Pervasive loneliness. Quiet resentment. Good times. For weeks my kids asked me questions I couldn’t answer about starting their new schools: Who will I eat lunch with? Will anyone be nice to me? What if I get lost? What’s my teacher going to be like? What’s it like to ride the bus? I tried to make a safe place for their constant worries, point them toward hopeful thinking, and pray with them about their worst case scenarios. It was exhausting and scary. By the time the First Day of School came on August 6th I was totally wrung out. I had nothing left. I even threw up from unprecedented anxiety that day. I think that’s called the bottom of the barrel. Now we’re are slowly finding our new normal in the predictability of a school routine. Backpacks and outfits are set out the night before, …