This morning at church I taught 16 3rd-5th grade boys about God (or tried to!). Every week in KidZone at Crossroads Community Church, I work with these young boys and try to share my excitement about our awesome God. It's not easy to keep their attention, but I try my best to think and communicate on their level. (Cathy tells me I act like a 5th grader most of the time, so I think I must be serving in the right ministry!)
I love working with children, and always have. I think a lot of this came from my own family situation when I was growing up... I was the second of three children born within three years of each other (David is a year older than me, Teresa two years younger). About ten years later, my parents had a fourth child, a girl named Angela.
To us older siblings, Angela was our "kid sister", and we had a lot of fun teaching her things and keeping her entertained. I remember that we would make up games for Angela to play: homemade board games, puppet shows, fun "homework" that she would complete and we would grade, etc. Angela loved the attention, and we enjoyed coming up with new stuff that she hadn't seen before. (This was before the days of video games, and my parents limited the amount of TV we watched, so we had to do SOMETHING.)
Fast forward ten or so years... After graduating college and moving to Greenville, it wasn't too long before I met Cathy and the boys, in 1989. The boys and I hit it off well, mainly because I was only 22 and still had a lot of "kid" left in me. The first day I met Brandon, he was sitting in the living room of Cathy's duplex in Spartanburg, playing Mario Brothers on his brand new Nintendo system he had gotten for Christmas. I loved video games too, so Brandon and I spent long hours working our way through the levels of that game.
Cathy and I were married the next year, and I became the boys' official step-dad. We had a lot of fun together in those years. I remember some highlights:
- One day, I took the boys to Dorman High School (the old one) in my old 1966 Pontiac. We played football for a bit, then got bored and decided to roll down a steep grassy hill, again and again. We had a ball.
- Playing "horsie" with Zachary in the living room of the duplex. This is one of the rare photos of Zach when he was not dressed in his Superman outfit (PJ's with cape), or sporting his favorite combination of plastic goggles with pacifier. (We'll get those pics posted here in a few days...)
- Going on the ferris wheel at the "redneck carnival" when it came through Simpsonville.
- At Myrtle Beach, a thunderstorm came up, and started pouring hot rain in sheets. The boys and I decided it would be cool to experience the storm first-hand on the porch, in our bathing suits...
When the boys got older, I missed having little kids to entertain, so I began volunteering to work with the kids at church. Since my talents lie mainly in the area of entertaining kids, I would always volunteer to do games during Vacation Bible School at Temple Baptist, and later at CRCC. A couple years ago, God helped me to realize that I have a special gift for working with kids, and that's where he wants me to be.
As long as I have breath in me, I intend to do just that. I'm looking forward very much to having some grandkids in a few years, who I can pour into as I tried to do with Angela, Brandon, Zach, and the kids at church. Children are such a blessing to me, and God frequently uses them to teach me lessons about humility, innocence, trust, and love.
I guess in a lot of ways I am just a big kid...and that suits me just fine.
And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
(Mark 10:13-16 ESV)
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