Lovewalking

I am posting late today because it is the first day of school. My dining room table looks like a display table at Office Depot. It will look this way for about 2 weeks as the kids gradually get everything removed to their lockers. They were nervous and a little excited as they moved through the new but familiar routine of dressing,quick bites of 'whatever" I can entice them with on a stomach full of butterflies and gathering all the necessary tools for the day.
They are also nervous because of what they will face,hear and be made aware of.
Public school is not the safe,warm and fuzzy place it was 50 years ago. There are many reasons for this which I will not try to explain or give my personal account of at this posting. No, today is about my reaction to this truth. 11 years ago my 4th grader and my kindergartener started public school. I had been a public school teacher for many years and knew what they were going to experience. First, I was gripped with fear and then I fell on my knees and cried out to God for their protection. Second, I attended a meeting I had heard about on the radio. I invited an aquaintance that also had a daughter who was entering kindergarten. We attended this meeting out of desperation. It was called Moms in Touch.
Moms In Touch is a prayer ministry. We were told how to use a simple outline of Praise,Silent Confession,Thanksgiving and then Intercession using scripture to pray for our children each week for one hour. My new friend was a little nervous. She barely knew me and she went home and told her husband," I have never prayed for anything for one hour".
But pray we did and the hour flew by.
I have to tell you that this new friend became my best friend. We have cried and laughed and sang and danced and shouted in some of the most exciting hours of prayer that I have ever experienced. We have seen our children succeed and fail and get up again as we have prayed them through elementary school,middle school,high school and now even college. Many other women have joined us through the years. Some have come and gone and some die hards like us are here to stay. 3 years ago another aquaintance called me up and asked me to help her with this vision God had given her to start a County-wide prayer walk for all our schools. I was excited about this because I was already doing this for my kids schools. It seemed like a huge task to get the whole county involved but we met to pray and God showed up and that is how the LOVEWALK was formed. The name came from 2john 6-"And this is love,that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning,His command is that you walk in LOVE."

Every year the LOVEWALK has grown from just a few moms to moms,dads,children,grandparents,teachers and even people who have no children at all. We had no idea who walked the first year and now we have a website where people contact us and let us know who walked and what they prayed. The first year we had a reporter take our picture and write an article in the paper. It was truly a God thing. Last year we had signs made and my friend and I hammered them into a hard dry ground because of the drought. We placed them at all of the schools by ourselves. This year just like the abundant rain we have had to loosen up the soil.. we had an abundance of helpers with this task.

On Saturday I stood at the elementary school where my son had graduated from and now will be entering the middle school next door. I stood with my Moms In Touch friend who started all this with me. We couldn't believe how 10 years had flown by sorta like the first hour of prayer. We asked God to replace us. We released this wonderful school with all the students,teachers and staff into His hands. And we turned toward the middle school to begin another year of LOVEWALKING.