VBS is over for another year. The first-graders visited a Hawaiian volcano tonight. I don't know why we were there. Our commandment was "You shall not covet." Of course they were pretty clueless about what coveting was, other than that it was a bad thing. The teachers in the volcano area performed a skit about Ahab, Nabob (or whoever he was), and the prophet Elijah. Apparently Ahab was coveting N's vineyard. As background information, the teacher introduced some of the vocabulary, like vineyard and prophet. She asked the kids what a prophet was. One said she thought a prophet was a winemaker. A second one said she thought a prophet was a chair--now where in the world did that come from? Don't you sometimes wish you could be inside a little kid's head for a while and see where they get their ideas?
The teacher also read the kids a story about a cat who lived in a church. Towards the end of the book, the cat was getting old and sick, and the vet suggested they have it euthanized. (I think she said "help it die") A youth who was working in the department asked me where cats went when they died. I told him some folks believed that their pets would be in Heaven with them. He then asked me, what if you have a really evil pet? I jokingly said, I guess it would go to pet Hell. Then I told him that I thought cats and other pets just decomposed and enriched the soil. Then he wanted to know what made them alive in the first place? I pretty much didn't want to go there, because I could see the possibility of a question like, why are people different from other animals? and I didn't feel like discussing that with a 13 year old. Anyway--at the end of the story (which had been going on while the two of us were talking) he said, I'm going to tell those little kids what really happens to pets when they die. I told him that probably wouldn't be a good plan, so he didn't do it.
At the end of the VBS commencement tonight, Brother Mac presented the same message he has been giving to the kids for the last four nights. They had an altar call, and I guess there were close to 15 kids who expressed an interest in learning more about how to be saved. That was rewarding, I know, for Mac. Three of family interest--Darlene's granddaughter, Peyton, and Rob's two oldest children, Benjamin and Sam. That Sam is one deep thinker. I wish I had a chance to work with their group.
Boy, I love working with kids--but in small doses! And I am really enjoying working with what I used to call the regular ed kids. It's fun to talk to some smart little folks once in a while. Now that VBS is over, I'll have to go a little more into the reinventing process. I don't guess I can make the rest-of-my-life's work (as Suze mentioned in her blog the other day) something as mundane as embellishing flip flops or knitting little hats. Not that I don't enjoy doing either, there just doesn't appear to be much of a call for it! Love you all, and God bless!
7 comments:
Okay, I was going to post something, but it's a bit involved and mentions full names of people. So I'll e-mail you instead.
Love ya!
now, you know you can knit little hats for orphans in haiti, momma!
except why in the world would orphans in Haiti want knitted hats? They would burn up their brains!
Well, you could knit hats for orphans in the former soviet union. They have so many orphans and so many orphanages that the government can't even keep up with how many there are, and so don't even have adequate funding for them all. And yet they are considering a ban on foreign adoptions because their birth rate has dropped so low in recent years (yeah, that makes sense. "We're afraid we are dying out, so we'll keep these poor kids in poverty instead of letting them have good homes and lots of love. National pride is important, you know." What a crock. And the kids are suffering!) However, I'll step down off my soapbox now.
Love you all!
okay, maybe i should have said "newborns," not orphans. duh. i know a lady who sews little blankets, bibs, bedding sets, etc for newborns in haiti, and buys other things, and i think newborns anywhere can wear hats, or booties, so maybe you could do that. but you've already brought three lovely children into the world, and are about to have a lovely grandchild, so that might be your "lfe's work," as suze's and jennifer's babies are their life's work, according to you. like the pinkstons say, their grandchildren are a "people group." but i wouldn't be surprised if you and daddy ended up somewhere overseas, or volunteering the way carolyn and stan dyer do in disasters, with daddy's carpentry skills and your skills with children, etc. but i also wouldn't be surprised if you guys just spent your retirement years loving each other fiercely, enjoying the world and blessing store owners and waitresses, etc, with your laughter and attention
i was expecting to see something on here about playing in the creek with granny and uncle mike
I am sooo glad you've decided not to make decorating flip-flops your life's work. For one thing, I don't wear flip-flops (for the same reason you'll never catch me wearing Spandex any place but under my clothes). For another, I know how wonderful you are with 'smart little folks'.
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