All day Saturday we attended the Colorado Junior Speech Tournament. Approximately 100 kids and their families gathered in a Colorado Springs Christian Church to compete in this small, yearly tournament. It is run totally by speech and debate students who compete in the “big league,” and the competitors are between ages 5 and 11. We had six of our kids (Isaiah, Micah, Noah, Tabitha, Keilah and Hannah) compete. We had the most children from any one family.
None of our kids broke to the finals, but that’s okay. We barely had enough time this year to memorize our speeches. Though we weren’t as prepared as we would have liked, we had a great time fellowshipping with the other families and observing the other speeches. The program of speech and debate, of which the ministry I lead centers on, is a great program for home-school families desiring to train their children for a greater purpose in life. The skills learned are second-to-none.
One of the reasons we weren’t as prepared as we would have hoped is that we just finished sending 9 kids through the Chicken Pox. Along with work and Wendy’s 9th month of pregnancy, we only had so much time for practice. Lydia was the only one without the Pox, for she wasn’t exposed until we returned from elk hunting. That was 14 days ago, so guess what happened? When we returned home last night, she had pox all over her body. According to medical professionals, the most contagious time is right before breaking out in pox. So, we exposed lots and lots of people!
Funny, last year at this time we had Whooping Cough. Everyone stayed away. This year we have Chicken Pox, and everyone wants to come over and play Twister with our kids. Our midwife brought her son over last night and did a housecall for Wendy, and he and Lydia shared the same straw from a drink.
Anyway, here’s a good capture of Hannah (5) doing her speech from Junie B. Jones:
About Chris & Wendy Jeub
