Incredible Fridays

One of the things that I love about our church is that there is truly something for everyone.  Whatever journeys of life you've traveled down, or whatever season of life you are in; there's something for you at FBC-Mckinney.  I love the Incredible Fridays ministry at our church...this ministry is for families that have special needs kiddos.  Each Friday per month, these families get to drop their kids off, so that they can have a date night.  Each adult is paired up with one special-needs kid and you basically play with them for three hours.  These kiddos have free-reign to any part of the children's building...they can do water play, hang out in the movie room, play video games or board games, go to the petting zoo, there's an art room, snack room, indoor playground. Seriously, they do all the decision-making, and you help guide them along.  Faith and Jaxon were in a separate room all night long with other kids that didn't have special needs--this experience really made me count my blessings.  I explained to the kids what I was doing that evening, because I feel like they need to be thankful for being perfectly-normal children with no battles to face from day-to-day.

I got there early so I could read all the paperwork on the kiddo I was paired up with.  Sweet Liam is Jaxon's age and has Down Syndrome, and recently got potty trained.  As soon as I met him, I just fell in love with his sweet, fun-loving, and playful personality.  I know God has a special plan for his life. Everyone was paired up with their kid and everyone was running and playing all around the place. We started out playing for about an hour in the indoor-play area...he was hiding from me in his "dragon cave," and roaring at me for the first part of the evening.  After our dragon escapades were over with, Liam wanted to go up and down the elevator...after going up and down two-dozen times, I felt myself getting a little nauseated, so I asked Liam if he wanted to go to the petting zoo.  He nudged me off the elevator, and wanted to go up and down by himself, but that just wasn't happening.  Once he figured out that I wasn't going to leave his side, he decided that he'd visit the petting zoo, but he didn't like it, so we went back inside for snack and water play.  He figured out where the drain was and made quite a mess, but it was definitely one we could clean up with towels, thankfully.  We ended our evening back in the indoor-play area, and Faith and Jaxon got to meet sweet Liam.  We snapped a few pictures with the iPAD...he loved the iPAD and loved looking at himself.  Before I knew it, his parents came to pick him up...what a precious evening I had with a sweet, little boy!