are you sure that's a good idea?

It was a 50K bike ride.  That thing.  On Sunday.  Magnum found it after my fail.

It was an event to support [THIS] very friendly looking group that provides services and activities for autistic children and their families.  I'd never heard of them.  I never heard of the event.  Had I known, I would've very possibly done the bike ride.  Maybe next year?

I often hear about these worthwhile events after the fact, much like the Doggie Dash the previous weekend.  But although China's come a long way since her shelter days, she's still not that comfortable in a crowd, so maybe no Doggie Dashes for her.  But I know Alice and Bella would both be up for a Pedal Through the Puzzle!

In the meantime, we have our own interventions to be concerned with.  It's Meego.  He's kind of started hanging with a different crowd.  Magnum and I aren't too concerned as we trust he has a good head on his shoulders, but Chaco's big brother engines are revving.

Last night, he drilled Magnum and me.  Did we think it was a good idea to allow Meego to do these activities?  What about peer pressure?  He's at that susceptible age.  And just what are they teaching him?  And how?

See, Meego's gone Biblin' again.  He's volunteering all this week at a VBS down the street.  Recall that he did similar volunteer work last summer, but that was at a different church.  That was at the Methodist church UP the street, not the church DOWN the street.

SOURCE

The church DOWN the street is a relatively large evangelical/born again church.  At least it's not THAT Big BIG evangelical/born again church in our fair city that attracts all the (well deserved?) snarky publicity.  If it were there, I might honestly have some motherly concern.

I won't get into a long, drawn out biography of my own church experiences and opinions.  Suffice to say that, like many others, the hypocrites drove Magnum and me away from church.  Suffice it further to say that the biggest examples of the hypocrisy have been a couple of neighbor families who claimed both the most blatant bullies and the most disrespectful kids I've ever known.  This along with both families' hateful stances against homosexuals.  One family went to that big BIG crazy church, the other, the church down the street.  And there've been other examples along the way.  I do get along fine with the families, one has since moved.  Just let's not talk religion, and don't expect me to be best buddies.

And now Meego is a VBS volunteer down the street and I'm fine with it.  Two of his good friends are at the upper age limit and are attending.  They don't belong to the church, they're just doing five fun days of 3-hour VBS, so Meego and another friend his age from the neighborhood decided to volunteer.  The whole gang will likely do similar at the more-acceptable-to-Chaco church UP the street later this month.

"Of all the things a 14-year-old kid could be getting into, I'm okay with it being VBS volunteering", I told Chaco.

But it's nice to know that Chaco cares.
.