courier

You can always learn so much from kids!
Today my daughter and I started leading Sunday School for the age group from Grades 1 thru 3. I really missed the little guys that we had taught for many years – the three to six year olds. This morning the kids were rather loud and raucous. I don’t know what had them so wound up. We started the morning off with a little game of “Bible Eights.” Its like “Crazy Eights” only we have a deck of cards that have different colored borders and the impression of different Bible characters on the fronts. I thought this would settle them down but it didn’t help much. Next we had them draw a mural on a large piece of blank paper we had taped on the wall. It was about creation so they were supposed to draw only the things that God had created – not what man had made even though we know man couldn’t have done all this without God. They drew the things you would expect – flowers, trees, a person, a fish and there were a couple of volcanoes sprinkled in for good measure. We learned the creation story – what God made on day one, day two, etc. We had some great sound effects and some good conversation mixed in with the lesson.
Next we knew we needed a snack so we had crackers and peanut butter and while we were spreading our peanut butter they were given a pine cone on which to spread peanut butter which we would then roll in bird seed and we could hang them in trees for the birds to eat. We talked about how we needed to take care of our world since God had created it and why we didn’t need to liter the earth with plastic, smog, etc., etc.
Man! They were really keyed up by now and by the time we got around to rolling our pine cones in the bird seed they were far out in space. We managed to get the bird feeder project done but we had enough seeds on the floor to feed an aviary for the winter.
Finally – and I mean FINALLY – the bell rang but we hadn’t gotten out bird feeders hung outside yet. My daughter took the kids and paraded them down the halls of the church, down the steps and out the front door. All the adults were leaving their Sunday School rooms and they looked upon the kids with their little pine cones dangling from a string and just smiled these sweet contented smiles that we old people flash towards these little ones. The kids were calm, cool, and collected as they walked the halls and finally hung the prizes for the winged wonders. But what had happened? I don’t know – but at least they were being good while others were watching!
Then tonight we had a special prayer meeting at our church. Andrea had prepared a short lesson for our group, followed by prayer, and then we had some games to keep them occupied until the adults could get finished down stairs. They were WOUND up again! We thought that playing games would get some of the wiggles out but again we were wrong. They must have all tanked up on sugar in the afternoon.
Parts of this evenings conversations were centered around such sentences as “I need some new underwear.” And I can’t forget “Dogs tongues are cleaner than peoples.” “Who remembers watching ‘Barney?’” “My dad could be a midget,” and many other wonderful bits of information.
Now I don’t know what these little tidbits of information have to do with praying but we really did try to get some of that done tonight.
During one game the conversation turned to pets and Daniel piped up “I have a pet worm at home. Grant had one, too, but I think it died.” (Hey, maybe we could link this up some how with prayer – I thought it was worth a shot – but that was a fleeting moment)
Grant is Daniel’s younger brother and is four years old. He was in my Sunday School group prior to gaining this older bunch and I really missed him this morning. His wisdom put me in my place this evening!
“Yea, I think he already turned into a butterfly,” Grant added.