The post you've been waiting for. Part 1

If you are a minor- or the parent of one who is standing over your shoulder- you might want to read with caution.If this was the Oprah show, the man with "the" voice would say, "Today's Oprah Show features adult content. Parental discretion is advised".

Y'all. I'm so sorry this has taken a while to get together. When you find out what all was involved with my weekend, then you'll understand.

Friday I shipped the kids off to spend the night with my wonderful in-laws. That's so we could go head up to church and school a bunch of middle schoolers on sex. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please read the beginning of this saga.

Friday night started with dinner, then a quiz to the kids in our group about what they think is sexy. {I should mention here that as we were walking towards our small group room, Jason turned to me and said, "I don't feel too great... I think I'm going to go home". He thinks he is pretty funny. I just looked at him with that look.} We passed around a picture of a baseball player and asked them if they thought they liked that person. Then we passed around a picture of a woman standing in a field and asked if they thought she was a Christian. To both of these, they all stared at the pictures blankly and said either "yes" or "no" kind of questioning the stupidity of the question. Then we passed a picture of a bikini-clad woman and asked if that was sexy. The boys immediately answered "yes" and the girls, of course, answered "no", but all of the kids did not want to touch the picture for more than 1.8 seconds. It was apparently red hot with sin and they were sitting in church, thank you very much. So, that lead to our discussion of what is "sexy". We talked a lot about media and what they are constantly surrounded with that tells them what it is to be sexy. They were much more aware of that than I thought they would be, so that was a good start. That lead into "sexy" being about your whole personality, etc, and more than just showing skin.

Next we headed to the main room to watch a video called "Why Teens Need to Know About Sex". Robin, our director, let us know before that this video was from the 80s. What she didn't let us know was that it would be a totally awesome flashback of middle school for US! It had pictures of Madonna (coned), a sober Paula Abdul, Nelson- both of them {oh, that hair!!}, and Meredith Baxter Bernie. It was a nice stroll down memory lane. I think Zak Morris's cell phone was pictured, but I can't be positive. Oh, and it talked about sex, too, and why teens should be educated, etc.

Then we trotted back down the hall to our small group to learn the parts of the female and male anatomy. The first page of the sheet they were supposed to label showed- what I will politely call- a gynecologist's view point of the female anatomy. Then it showed the female in cross section form. Then the next page had a male anatomy picture- complete with hair in the right places- and then a cross section. Here's the kicker- WE DIDN'T HAVE THE ANSWERS- just a completely different drawing and we had to decipher what was what. I think the kids got a kick out of us staring at the pictures, then turning them upside down- then yes, finally deciding that that was the "outer labia". If I had a nickel for every time I've said, "OK. The fourth blank down is the clitoris", we'll... I'd just have a nickel, but that's pretty much how that segment went. The kids were hilarious with the material and then started to come up with their own names. To them, the ovary looked much like a strawberry in this drawing, so that's what it became. And the cross section of the female looked a lot like a flamingo and the cross section of the male looked a lot like a golf club. {That last one is probably not a stretch for you to visualize without looking at the drawing.} The real point of this is to not only have them learn the correct terminology, but to use it. As parents, we don't shorten other names of our bodies- like call our ears something other than ears or our elbows our "el-el", so when we call the penis the "pee-pee" and make up names for other parts, then we are showing them that there is something to be ashamed of or hide about those parts. From now on, there will be penises in our house and not pee-pees! This is going to be difficult for the polite, Suuuuuthern part of me, but I think it's necessary.
With all our their new knowledge of things like the epididymus and the fallopian tubes, we marched back down the hall, ready to take on the other teams in a feisty game of pictionary. There was another church that also had 2 groups of kids there and I found myself giving our team pep talks like this, "Do you think those chumps can come over here on our home turf and take us? NO! Let's go kick their anus!!". Even with that pep talk, the visitors won by one point. Dang it. But they did have a fun time yelling "Seminal glands!" (my favorite mis-quote of the night was seminary glands) "Prostate!", "Cervix!" and "Uterus!" all together. By that time we were all about over the goofiness of the terminology. We went back to the room and it was time to answer the questions from the question box.
Earlier the kids had written down questions anonymously, we had taken them to a big room with all the other adults and discussed the correct answers. So it was time to discuss the answers with the kids.
Our first question was, "If you have sex before you are married, will you go to Hell?". Hello. Thanks for that opener. We answered by talking about sin and how you want to steer clear from all types of sin, but that God loves you and forgives you and will always do that if you repent and turn away from your sin. Amen. Hallelujah.
Over the weekend we had 4 rounds of the question box and they questions ranged from "What is a blow job?" to "What's for lunch?" and pretty much everywhere in between.

Friday night ended with the kids going home with their parents. I thought they might have spent the night at the church, but someone thought that keeping 50 hormonal middle schoolers together in an empty church after revving them up with sex talk all night might not be a good idea. Good thinking. So, off we all went to get some rest for the night. It was going to be a long day on Saturday. Lots more talk about masturbation, homosexuals, abortion and STDs was to come.
I can't wait to fill you in on the rest of it tomorrow! I'm sure you can't wait!
If you think this is awkward to read, just imagine when we explained it all to their parents on Saturday night!

Some PG-13 material involved

If you are a minor- or the parent of one who is standing over your shoulder- you might want to read with caution.
If this were the Oprah show, the man with "the" voice would say, "Today's Oprah Show features adult content. Parental discretion is advised".

Jason and I have been suckered into {that was for you, Amanda} asked to lead a workshop this weekend called the Christian View of Sex. It is the official United Methodist Church's curriculum for sexual education (but I can't find a link for it- hmmm). Oh, did I mention that we will be teaching MIDDLE SCHOOLERS!!!! If I had a knife stabbing/ horror movie screaming sound effect I would insert it here.

Yes, Jason and I teach middle school students every week with youth, so we would be an obvious choice, I guess, but somehow the word "vagina"- or even "va-jay-jay" never comes up in our discussions on the Bible or their school life, so I'm afraid this is about to get weird. I don't want our relationships with them to go to that level of weirdness, so I'm a little apprehensive. Supposedly, we get a wonderful training to teach us how to impart their hormone-filled minds with Godly answers. Well, we got that training last night and I'm still a little scared.

Truly, the training was fine and I know the program will be great, but I am still terrified... of 6th- 8th graders. Pimply, brace-faced, smart allec kids who I already KNOW, but still they are somewhat "my" kids and I can't help to feel that parental awkwardness.

Everything is supposed to go much more smoothly after pictionary on Friday night. Yes, uh-huh. That's right. Once we get all the official body parts named and out there and the whole group screams "scrotum" all together to get their point in the game- then things are supposedly going to get easier. Oh my.

I am not a prude, nor do I think this subject matter should be skipped over. On the contrary, Robin (our trainer) made a wonderful point the other night. She said that the church did a great job of teaching kids about all the blessings that they receive from God- except this one. So, the program focuses on the positive aspects of sexuality (defined as everything that makes us a man or a woman) and teaches them abstinence with the facts. They need to know the truth since so much of what they "learn" is from other friends who don't know their ovum from their rectum a darn thing.

We will not only talk about facts, act out situations and play games, but there is also a question box during each session. EACH of the kids will have to write a question to put in the anonymous question box so that no one will no who wrote what. Thankfully, there is a time period built in after each session where all the leaders go into a room, furiously write down all the questions on a big post it note pad {giggle and snicker at some of the questions} and then we get strategic tips {okay fine- probably the whole answer} from Robin on how to answer. We also have a notebook full of resources and facts, so I'm sure those will be helpful.

I can go ahead and tell you that I am taking deep breaths right now. {I think I can do this. Yes, we can do this.} The hard part- honestly- is going to be keeping a straight face. There are only so many times I can think, "That's what she said" without collapsing into giggles on the floor. And Jason and I have to sit across from each other in the room- which I do NOT think will fit well into our strengths. If you happen to know us in person, you know that we are goofy. Dorky goofy. Who in the WORLD asked us to do this again? That would be my good friend Amanda- the Youth Associate at our church. Shown here with her husband Larry as Batman and Bat Woman. As you can see, she obviously has impaired judgement. But she and Larry will be the other group leaders, so we will definitely have a fun time comparing notes with them.

So, I am going to have to channel my inner adult this weekend and make this happen. Our sessions are Friday night and all day Saturday. Then we have a 2 hour session with the parents to tell them what we talked about and then what their kids (in general- no specifics) think about sex and their sexuality and how they can continue the conversation. So, any prayers that you've gotten lying around and you want to toss them our way would be greatly appreciated.

I'm off to read up on STDs, homosexuality, the clinical terms: erection, semen and intercourse.

That's what she said.