In my Sunday School class, I've been making movies to help illustrate our lessons. Over the past few weeks, we've been studying Acts. Acts is great because it talks about God's AMAZING, UNSTOPPABLE power. God had a plan to have the Good News about His Son Jesus spread all over the place and nothing could stop it!

Here are a couple of movies that we've watched that help illustrate what we've been learning. I use LilKat1's legos to make the movies. This first video talks about God's amazing power to change lives.

This second video talks about how nothing can stop the power of God.

These videos have been working out great in class. The kids love them, and they help reinforce the lessons that we've been learning about God and the Bible.

Advent

Wow...it's been busy around here lately. I started a new basketball clinic for kids at our church. It's kind of a pilot program right now. It's a small 4 week session made up of kids from my Sunday School class and around the neighborhood. In January, I'm planning on doing a larger session that's open to everyone else. So that's one thing keeping us busy. But we've also got ADVENT!

A couple of Christmas's ago, we started doing a new thing where we give our kids almost all of their Christmas presents before Christmas. The idea is that getting the presents out of the way will make it easier for us to truly celebrate Jesus' birthday. And it's been working great for the past 2 years! I like it because less importance is placed on the presents. The kids like it because they get their presents early. (Mrs. BigKat is not as thrilled about the new system as I am, but she does see the need for it and enjoys the fact that it's working so well.)

Anyhow, at church, they asked us, as a family, to light the Advent candle this Sunday. And my job is to tell about our family traditions that help us keep Jesus as the focus of Christmas. Now everyone at church will get to hear about my crazy idea!

There's another Advent activity that LilKat1 and I are doing. It's actually something that I'm doing with my Sunday School class. We're doing an Advent Calendar, but it's a little different than your normal Advent calendar. You know the calendars where you open up the doors and eat the little chocolates (or get Legos or whatever)? Well, instead of getting things, we're giving things. Each day leading up to Christmas, we're giving a gift of service to Jesus. On our calendar, we write down something we can do to share God's love with someone else for each day of the month. Then, as we give our gifts of service, we draw hearts around whatever day it is to mark down what we did. For example, one day LilKat1 spent some time with his sister playing her favorite game. Another day, he emailed his favorite Bible verse to his grandmother. Another time, he helped make cookies, which we sold to help raise money to buy blankets for poor people in India to help them stay warm during the winter. So on Sunday, I'll be able to talk about our Advent Calendar too!

Here's a little video I made for my Sunday School class to illustrate the idea:

Sunday School Video #2

This is the video I did this week for Sunday School. The kids enjoyed this one quite a bit. I enjoy these videos because they are reminiscent of the puppet shows that I used to do in class. Those puppet shows were great. The kids LOVED them. Even the grownups liked them. Our youth pastor would actually try to make time to be in our class when we were doing the puppet shows so that he could watch. They were one of the main highlights of the class.

But then my puppet show partner went to a different class, and I couldn't do them anymore with her. Mrs. BigKat filled in and did them with me for a year after that. But then she started helping out with the littler kids. I didn't have a partner anymore, so we had no more puppet shows.

For the past couple of years, I've been trying to think of a way to bring them back. I remembered a friend of mine doing a video for a class in high school using his GI Joes and Star Wars figures. I figured that with my new Vado, it would be fairly easy to get a set of toy-based videos like that done. I'm hoping that I can put these out every week or two for the kids. Now that soccer season is over, I have a bit more free time (and energy) to do stuff like this.

Here's the video:

Sunday School Video

Today at Sunday School, I'm teaching about Joseph. We're learning about how, no matter what happened to Joseph, God was with him. Even though Joseph went through all sorts of bad times, God was able to use them for His good purposes. To help illustrate how God can make great things happen from our bad situations, I made a little video using some of LilKat1's toys. I'm showing it in class this morning. I hope the kids like it!

Here it is:

The Donut Store

Our church does not have a fellowship hall. After church, if you want to hang out and talk with your friends, there really isn't a great place to do that. There is an area right outside the main room that people just kind of stand in if they want to talk. But it's not very wide and if you hang out in one place, you basically get in everyone else's way.

For the past few summers, I've been suggesting that they take some tables and chairs and put them outside on the patio. That way people can sit outside and have a comfortable place to chat. Unfortunately, I no one's listened to me because it's never happened.

Well, the other week, Mrs. BigKat and I decided to make it happen. Not only that, but we also made it into a cool service project for kids! As a parent, I know how hard it is to find good service opportunities for young kids, so part of what I do as a Sunday School teacher is to come up with creative ways to get the kids involved in ministry. Last winter, our Sunday School class found out about a need in India. There are families there who have no doors on their houses and no blankets to protect them from the cold in the winter. So our class raised money during February to help provide blankets for them. I had planned on having my class do another 'Blanket Month' project in September. But we saw a great opportunity to have the kids get it kick started in August. That led to the creation of...

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL DONUT STORE!!!

Here's the plan. Each Sunday in August, between 1st and 2nd service, our kids will run a Donut Store in front of the church. We'll have tables and chairs so that people can have a comfortable place to relax and enjoy donuts with their friends. There are a bunch of different jobs for the kids: making signs, creating table decorations, passing out flyers, serving lemonade, collecting money. The donuts cost a dollar each, and the money will go towards buying blankets for families in India. So not only do our kids get a chance to help out people who need help, but our congregation gets a place for people to socialize after church.

Last week was our first Sunday. I wasn't sure at all how many donuts to buy. At first, I was going to go with 3 dozen. But we decided to bump it up to 4 dozen. We had considered 5 dozen, but really didn't want to be stuck with any leftover donuts, so we just stuck with 4.

Turns out we really didn't have to worry about leftovers! After first service, people started lining up at the Donut Store. And I mean EVERYONE! The 4 dozen donuts were gone in a couple of minutes, and there was still a line going into the parking lot. And people were very generous. Our 4 dozen donuts led to $128 in donations. That's 25 blankets! Next week, we've decided to bump it up to 15 dozen and see how that works.

I think this will be a great illustration for the kids to show that God can use anyone for ministry. When we're helping others in Jesus' name, God can do amazing things through us. We might be limited, but He is not. I am very excited to see how the next four Sundays go!

..and NEW World's Champion

To start off, I have to give a little background...

About a month or two ago, I had a 6th grade helper, E, in my Sunday School class (the sister of one of my 1st graders, S). We were at the part of class where the kids tell me interesting things that they've done during the week. S told me that his sister won 1st place in the 400 at a track meet. I asked her what her time was and she said that she ran a 1:09.

I wondered if I could run a 1:09 too. I used to run track, but I hadn't done any middle distance in a looooong time. Well, the following Monday, I went to the track to see how I would do. I figured if a 6th grade girl could run a 1:09, surely I could run something close to that.

WRONG!

I ran my lap and clocked in at a very unblistering 1:25. I was glad that E wasn't there racing against me because it would've been embarrassing. As it was, it probably just looked to everyone like I was doing a slow warm up lap. (Oh, by the way, E was very encouraging to me. I told her that I had run a 1:25 and she said 'That's not so bad! I have a friend who ran a 1:23!' I asked her what grade her friend was in, and she replied 'Fifth'. Great...)

I decided that I was going to start training to beat 1:09 so that I would no longer be slower than a 6th grade girl. I started doing interval training during the week instead of my normal slow jog. My workout was a mile and a half warmup followed by a couple of 400's and a couple of 300's (or 200's if I was too tired).

It didn't take long to see the results. Within a week, I was down to 1:13. The next week, it was down to 1:11. And finally...a 1:09!

I saw E at church and proudly told her that I had tied her time. She told me that that was really good! She also informed me that her other friend (also a 6th grader) ran a 1:07!

yay...

Ok, so now I had a new goal. But it wasn't so bad. I got my 1:07 just last Friday!

I think that I can now safely say that I am faster than all 6th grade girls in the entire world (doesn't count if their last name is Bolt, Lewis, Devers, or Joyner-Kersey).

Oh yeah, and that thing about the NEW World's Champion? Well, running my 400's has also helped speed up my one and a half mile warmup time. It used to take my a little over 12 minutes to run it. Today, I clocked in at 10:47! My own personal best! It seemed pretty fast, so I looked up what the Track and Field World's Record is for the mile and a half. Turns out there isn't any! There's records for the 1500, mile, 2000, and 3000. But no mile and a half. I must be the first, so I guess that makes me that Champ. I just need to figure out who to email my time to at the US Track & Field Association, so that they can update their World's Record page.

Secret Missions

Last Saturday, I was trying to come up with a good way to teach my Sunday School kids about Matthew 28:19-20, the Great Commission:

So you must go and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And you can be sure that I am always with you, to the very end.

I wanted a good 'hook' to get their attention, and immediately thought of 'Secret Missions'. I thought it would be perfect. I figured all kids know about Secret Missions. I showed a couple of old Inspector Gadget clips to give an illustration of a Secret Mission (most of the kids had never heard of Inspector Gadget...they loved it).

I then posed the question 'What if God gave you a Secret Mission?' They decided that if God gave them a Secret Mission, they would do their best to follow it. That's when I introduced them to the Great Commission. I pointed out that it's not really a 'secret' mission since it's in the Bible and anyone who has a Bible can read it. But it was still a mission from Jesus to those who believe in Him.

Finally, for a craft, I had them make what appeared to be a standard Sunday School craft (a Cross). It looked like a paper cross made nice and pretty with colored paper glued to it. But in reality, it had a hidden panel with their Secret Mission, Matthew 28:19-20 printed inside. The colored paper served not only as a distraction to outside observers, but also helped camoflauge the hidden compartment. Whether or not they wanted to reveal the hidden contents of their craft was totally up to them. All of the kids had a great time with the craft. They loved that there was a secret compartment with their Secret Mission from God. I thought it was the perfect Sunday School lesson.

Until last night...

I got an email from a parent expressing their concern about the word 'secret'. They found the work to be very negative and don't use it in their house. They work as a therapist and mentioned that 'secret' is a word that sex offenders use with kids. They concluded by encouraging me to not use the term 'secret' anymore.

I had never really thought about this before, and spent a lot of last night trying to figure out what I thought of it. Here's what I've come up with so far:

First of all, a secret is basically another word for privileged information. It creates 2 groups: Group A, which has access to the privileged information, and Group B, which does not.

Why create a secret? Because the creator of the secret believes that if people in Group B had access to the privileged information, it could possibly create an undesired (to the creator of the secret) consequence.

In other words, it becomes an issue of trust: Group A is trusted, Group B is not.

Now I don't really believe that the concept of privileged information is bad. Obviously, you have things like passwords, bank account numbers, etc. that should be privileged information. As far as kids go, the idea of privileged information can be used for their protection. 

I think that where things go wrong, like in the example of the sex offender, is when somone forces a child to choose to put their parents into Group B: the group that can not be trusted. So maybe the concept of privileged information is not bad. Maybe what makes a piece of privileged information bad is when a child is forced to break an absolute rule that is put in place for their protection (in this case, the rule being 'Always trust your parents').

To protect against this, perhaps it would be good to emphasize trust in the parent/kid relationship so that if a situation came up where a kid was asked to place their parents into Group B, their education and upbringing would force them to make a good choice and they would recognize why creating certain forms of privilged information is a bad idea.

Now, I'm not a therapist, and there's probably a lot of things that I'm not considering. But like I said, I've never thought of the idea of 'secrets' being something that should be excluded from the upbringing of our childrent and I'm trying to figure it out. The parent is quite passionate about their opinion on this, and I'd really like to find out if it has merit. I'd hate to teach something to my Sunday School kids that could potentially harm them.

Sick

Our family got hit with the flu a couple of weeks ago. It started with LilKat1. Then Mrs. BigKat. Then LilKat2 and PrincessKat. For a long time, I was the only one that was not sick. I was really hoping that it would pass me by.

It didn't.

I got hit with a fever last Wednesday. I missed a business trip down to California. But I thought it was early enough that I would be fine by Easter.

Well, Saturday night rolls around, and I'm still not feeling well. I was preparing my Powerpoint presentation when it suddenly hit me...what if I'm still contagious? If I'm still contagious, then I can't go to Sunday school! I did a little research, and it turns out that I was, in fact, still contagious. So we had to quickly switch gears. I ditched the Powerpoint and had to start working on a new lesson plan that my substitute, Mrs. BigKat, could teach (keep in mind that it was about 10pm by this point). Her Sunday School teaching style is much different than mine, so I had to come up with something that would fit her. First of all, I had her read about Jesus' resurrection from The Jesus Storybook Bible (which I consider to be the BEST storybook Bible out there). I also got some songs for her that the kids were familiar with that she could do with them. We have a video that has Jana Alarya performing her songs with all of the hand motions. I thought this would be a fun way for Mrs. BigKat to lead the singing portion. And I already had the crafts part all worked out. So a good chunk of the class was taken care of without too much difficulty.

But I also wanted the kids to hear about the significance of Easter. I wanted to explain to them about God's Plan of Salvation and about how the whole Bible is centered around Christ's death and resurrection. And I REALLY wanted to this part myself.

That's when I came up with my great idea...

I set up my webcam and made a short 7 minute video of myself that Mrs. BigKat played for the kids on the projector. It took me 4 or 5 takes, but it turned out pretty good! Some of the kids actually thought that I was talking to them from my home. I started out doing the 'Christ is risen!'-'He is risen indeed!' greeting, which they picked up on pretty quickly. I had them do it 4 times, encouraging them to get progressively louder (Mrs. BigKat said that they got pretty loud by the third time). It sounds like they were disappointed that I wasn't there, but they were happy that my wife was taking my place and that they were able to see me on the video.

I was glad that I was kinda-sorta able to be in class on Easter with the kids. I was quite disappointed when I realized that I wouldn't be able to go. We had been looking forward to our Easter class for a while now. I had purchased some special crafts for them and everything. But in the end, I think we did a pretty good job of taking a less-than-ideal situation and still making it special for the kids.

You know, this is really an interesting side effect of when I decided to create my own curriculum this year. I knew that creating all my own stuff was a big decision and would require a lot of extra effort. But I decided to just give it a try and see what happens. The funny thing is that now, when other ideas pop into my head, it's pretty easy to just give those a try as well. We did this for 'Blanket Month' where our our class raised $100 in February to help provide blankets for families in India. We did it when we redesigned how our Discipleship Journals worked (also known as D-Journal v2.0). We did this when we started using YouTube videos as a way to communicate important information to parents. And now, thanks to my webcam we're able to creatively minister to the kids on Easter, even though I was sick. 

It might not be very traditional. It can sometimes take some extra effort. And it may not work out like I envision it. But for a Sunday School Geek like me, finding new, interesting ways to teach the Bible, disciple kids, and solve problems is a lot of fun. And most importantly, when I'm able to implement one of my goofy ideas, I feel like I'm using the gifts that God has given me and really putting them to use for His glory. 

I'm Done!

Oh boy, what a week...

Here's all the stuff I did:

1) Ran 3 Soccer practices

2) Coached 2 Soccer games

3) Attended 2 End of Season Soccer parties

4) Created 2 Soccer Team movies (along with copies for all of the parents)

5) Created 1 flower arrangement for my friend K's family (huge assist from Mrs. BigKat here)

6) Attended 1 pumpkin carving event at LilKat1's school

7) Created 1 Sunday School PowerPoint lesson with associated take home pages

All while sick!

I just printed the last page of my Sunday School stuff.

I'm done! Woo hoo!

October 22

Remembering my friend K on her birthday. She would've been celebrating her 10th birthday today. Instead, she's celebrating eternal life with Jesus.

I went to the cemetary today, same as I do every year on this day. It's been 3 years in a row now that God has decided to make October 22 a beautiful sunny day, right in the middle of fall.

I miss K. But it's wonderful knowing that I'll get to see her again someday.

Sunday School Challenges

This Fall has been about figuring out new ways to tackle old Sunday School challenges. Some of the things I'm trying to do this year are:

1) Making Bible lessons interesting and relevant to kids with different levels of Bible knowledge

2) Helping families to do Sunday School stuff during the week

3) Helping parents get a handle on what they're kids are learning in class

4) Providing useful resources related to the in-class lessons that parents can use in discipling their kids

5) Helping kids share about how God is working in their lives

But one of the main challenges that I've consistently faced is communication with parents. Parents don't always have time to come to meetings. And there's not enough time to talk to all of them individually when they're picking up or dropping off. Handouts and bulletin announcements can get lost in the pile of take-home stuff they receive each week.

So I decided to try something new. I made a video that gives an overview of some of the new (and potentially more confusing) things that are going on in our class. My hope is that parents that are interesting in finding out what's going on in class can watch this whenever they have some free time. It's not something they have to schedule. I think a lot of the parents (like me) just have a ton of stuff going on all the time. I'm hoping that this is more helpful to them than the other things we've done in the past.

You can go here if you're interested in finding out what kind of new things we're doing in our class this year.

Shining Eyes

My friend Tara linked to a couple of interesting videos today. One of them was a guy who did some very cool stuff with a Wii remote control. But the other video was the one that really got me thinking.

In this video, a guy, Benjamin Zander, talks about classical music. His thought is that, although not everyone is a fan of classical music, everyone can appreciate it. The trick is to get people to understand what it is that they're listening to. Appreciation comes when the listener can experience what it is that the composer is trying to do with his music. He illustrates this by walking the audience through a piece by Chopin, helping them to not concentrate on the individual notes, but on the journey as a whole from the first note to the last. And he does a great job of it. Check it out (kind of a longer video, roughly 20 minutes or so, so grab some popcorn...)

Now here's the part that got me thinking...While watching the video, I kept thinking about how this presentation could easily be applied to the Bible. As a Sunday School teacher, I have been frustrated by the various curriculums that are out there. I have found that they just take tiny pieces and parts of Scripture and form them into a lesson about some sort of moral issue. Maybe it's helping others or obeying your parents or remembering to pray.

Here's an example from last week. I'm not teaching my normal class over the summer (I'll resume in the Fall). Instead, they're doing a video based curriculum that focuses on missions. The lesson last week was about helping your friends. It told the story from Luke 5 about when Jesus heals the paralytic. The point of the story (according to the lesson) was that the paralytic's friends helped him to see Jesus. They brought him to the house and lowered him down the roof. So we should be like the paralytic's friends and help people who are sick.

This lesson bothered me for a few reasons. First of all, there was very little Bible related material in the lesson. I felt that, with a little modification (or perhaps none), this same lesson could have been taught at some non-Christian churches and would have still fit in. Second, helping out sick people is fine, but I don't see how watching this video is going to make any of these kids more likely to help out sick people than if they had not seen the video. But most importantly, at the end of the lesson, the kids have really not learned anything about the Bible.

My goals as a Sunday School teacher is to help kids learn about the Bible, to share God's love with them, and to help them develop their relationship with Christ. When I teach a Bible story, I want the kids to really learn the Bible story! I want them to know why this story was SO important, that God felt it was necessary to put it in His Word. It seems like many Sunday School lessons teach the Bible as a collection of stories or as a rulebook for life. The emphasis is put on the various characters in the Bible. Be like Joseph because he forgave his brothers! Be like Noah because he listened to God! Be like the paralytic's friends because they helped their sick buddy!

But the Bible is not a story about these people. It's a book about God! It's a story of God's love for us and His plan of salvation! And focusing on the details that may or may not be that important makes us miss the big picture of what the Bible is all about. Just as Mr. Zander helps his audience to understand Chopin from the first note to the last, I want to be able to help kids understand the Bible as a whole from beginning to end. Just as Mr. Zander explains the context of the various notes in relationship to the whole composition, I want to be able to help kids understand the place of the various Bible stories in relation to Christ's redeeming work on the Cross.

But this is all stuff that I've thought of before. The interesting part came near the end of the video when he talks about how he knows if he's doing his job or not. He says that his job is to 'awaken possibility in other people'. And the way that he tells if he's doing this or not is to look into their eyes. If their eyes are shining, then he's doing his job. If they're not shining, then he needs to figure out why.

I realized that this is what my focus in Sunday School needs to be. It's important to help the kids learn about Scripture. But I want to be help kids develop an appreciation for Scripture. I want to be able to help kids develop an appreciation for God's great love for them. I want to be able to help kids to understand that the Bible is more than a storybook or a rulebook. And most importantly, I want to help them develop a desire to learn more about God and His Word.

And do you know how I'm going to go about doing this? No? Me neither!

Well, I have a little idea. I need to think of ways that make the Bible really accessible to kids. To be able to take their experiences with family and friends and school and sports and whatever and use them to somehow relate to the things that God is sharing with us in His Word. To take things from their lives that will bring about that 'Ah-a!' moment where their eyes will start shining.

Now I'm not saying that I'm expecting to have a class full of joyful, Spirit-filled, shining-eyed kids just because of what I'm teaching. I'm just saying that I think that my kids will have a better chance to appreciate the Bible if I'm able to present its true meaning in a simple, yet complete way that's meaningful to them. I'm hoping that by helping them to really understand what the Bible is all about and by helping them find ways that they can experience God's love, they'll have a nice foundation for exploring their faith as they grow up and develop.

I'm not sure what that's going to look like or how much work it's going to take, but I've got most of the summer left to think, study, and pray about it.

Encouragement

I started trying out some new stuff in my Sunday School class. Our class is a bit bigger this quarter, and I felt that I needed to make some changes to accommodate the larger class size. I started developing my own PowerPoint presentations for the Bible lessons. The new presentations allow me to more easily illustrate important concepts that I'm trying to teach the kids. They also make it easier to give background information for the stories. It also allows me to have longer lessons since the pictures give them something to focus on while I talk. So now, instead of just describing what leprosy is, I can actually show the kids a picture of a guy that has leprosy and they can see what his skin looks like.

The problem with the PowerPoint presentations, however, is they take a lot of prep time. I'm following the curriculum and I use it as a guide, but I'm mostly making my own presentation. It can take up a lot of time during the week to finish, especially because I usually have to make up my own activities to go with the lesson as well.

At one point, I was wondering if it was worth it. I spend a lot of time during the week developing these lessons, and it's not always easy to see the benefit. I can see that the kids are definitely entertained, but are they actually learning anything? Am I actually contributing to their spiritual growth? When it's midnight on Saturday and I'm Googling for pictures about Lazarus, these kinds of concerns pop into my head.

Well, the other day, I got a very encouraging message from one of my Sunday school parents. They told me that they'd noticed their daughter applying the principles that she learned in Sunday school to her daily life. Here is part of what they wrote:

Yesterday after church L said that one thing she'd learned was
that "nothing is more important than spending time with God ...
nothing".  She shared the bible lesson about Martha and Mary.  Later,
when it was almost bedtime, I told her that we didn't have enough
time to read both of the things she wanted to read (a Nancy Drew
chapter book and her girls' devotional book), so she would have to
choose one.  She was confident in her response: "Well, I know which
one because of what I learned in church today: nothing is more
important than spending time with God ... nothing."  What a great
application of that effective teaching!

 

It is so encouraging to hear that kind of feedback from parents. It makes it a lot easier to put in the extra time working on my Sunday School lessons. I feel like it is a tremendous honor to be a part of the spiritual development of these fantastic kids. I know that I should be giving my best as a Sunday School teacher even if I can't see any of the benefits myself. But somehow, it sure makes things a lot easier when I hear stories like this.

I miss my friend

A couple of years ago, one of my Sunday School kids was killed in a car accident. The month after that was pretty hard for me, emotionally. Last night, I had a dream that I saw her again. I was so happy to see her. As soon as I recognized her, I went over to talk to her. But right as I approached her, I woke up. I could barely sleep the rest of the night. I couldn't stop thinking about her. I wanted to go back to sleep and be able to talk with her again. But I couldn't.

This morning, I've been trying to think of why I get so sad thinking about her. I know she's in Heaven, and I know that I'll get to see her again. I know that she's with the Lord which is better than any place that I could imagine. Yet, I still get sad thinking about her. The week before the accident, she was in my Sunday School class. After class, I was walking down the stairs at church and saw her talking with one of her friends. I called out her name to say something silly to her, but she didn't hear me. I thought to myself, 'it's fine, I'll just see her next week'. I never got that chance.

One of the things that I think about is the fact that I never got to say goodbye to her. It was all so sudden. I still remember when our friend from church called me to tell me about the accident. It was like someone snuck up from behind me and hit me with a hammer. It was just so unexpected and devastating. I was telling Mrs. BigKat that I don't even like it when I don't get to say goodbye to LilKat1 before he gets on the school bus. I think it's one of the main reasons why I get so sad thinking about her 2 years later (I think the other reason is just knowing how hard it is for her parents).

I praise God that my friend is with Him. I praise God that I'll get to see her again someday. But right now, I miss her.

Funny Sunday School moment

There's a family at our church, the L's, that are one of my very favorite families. I had their older son in my Sunday School class a few years ago, and now I have their little girl, M. Now this family is a very nice family. I enjoy talking with both of the parents. And the kids are great. But sometimes, things happen that remind you that even the nicest people have their bad days. And if you happen to have one of those days around your kids, you may get unexpected results.

Well, this weekend, our family went orienteering. I've been telling the L's about orienteering for a while now, and they keep telling me about how much they'd like to try it out. So Saturday morning, I called them to let them know that there was an orienteering event at one of the local parks. No one was home when I called, so I left a message. The next morning, they came in to my Sunday School class to drop off M. They thanked me for the message and said that they would've loved to have gone, but they were busy all day. I told them about what a nice day it had been, perfect for orienteering. The dad said something to the effect of 'Well, it sounds like we would've had a lot more fun doing that than what we ended up doing' and his wife nodded in agreement.

After M got checked in, she started coloring with me and some of the other kids. I asked her what her family did all day yesterday. She kind of scrunched her face thought about it for a second. After a few moments, she said 'Well...my dad was yelling at my mom...then I was late to a birthday party...but I got to see them open presents...' Right after she said 'my dad was yelling at my mom' I started laughing. It was too funny.

When M's parents came to pick her up, I said to the dad...'So I asked M what you guys did on Saturday...and she said 'Well, my dad was yelling at my mom...'' He just kind of looked down, wiped his hand on his forehead, and said 'Yeah...it was just one of those days...'

Now I'm wondering what kind of things our kids say to their teachers about me and Mrs. BigKat!

It's a miracle!

So at Sunday School last week, I miraculously healed a little girl. When she woke up that morning, she said that her stomach hurt and that she didn't want to go to church. The family went anyhow, and she told her parents that she still didn't feel well. She wanted to stay in the main service with her parents and not go to Sunday School. They still brought her up to class. She walked in the room, saw me, and was immediately healed! She told her parents that she felt fine and joined the group. A miracle!

Ok, here's what really happened...I've been this little girl's Sunday School teacher for 2 years now. My class was the K/1st grade class. The little girl is now in 2nd grade so she thought that she was going to have a new Sunday School teacher. According to her mom, she was not happy about this at all. Well, things changed a bit and I am now the 1st/2nd grade teacher. When she saw that I was still going to be her teacher for another year, all her troubles for the day just disappeared. So apparently, I just made her year much better! Hearing stuff like this from parents really helps motivate me as a Sunday School teacher. I want kids to learn more about Jesus, to learn more about the Bible, things like that. But I think that it really helps when going to Sunday School is a place that they really look forward to going to.

Sunday School Comment of the Day

Last Sunday, we had a couple of special guests come in and talk to our Sunday School class. They are missionaries who have been living in Albania. They were talking about the other missionaries that they work with who come from countries around the world. Which lead to this exchange with one of the kids:

 

Guest Speaker: ...and these missionaries come from many different countries, England, Finland, the United States, Korea...

(boy raises hand)

Guest Speaker: Yes, in the back, do you have a questions?

Boy: Have you asked the people from Korea if they have nuclear weapons?

Guest Speaker: Ummm...well, we don't really talk much about political things like that. And these missionaries are from South Korea and not North Korea.

Boy:Oh...South Korea...Did you know that the people of South Korea play more video games than anyone else in the world?

 

Kids are funny.