Submitted by KIDS Elementary Volunteer:
This morning as I was driving the kids to school, my oldest was on my iphone, looking on the CNN webpage for possible news stories for his current events report, which he knew would be homework. He came across the recent oil spill in the Gulf, and was horrified to read a news report about a Mississippi man whose home had been leveled by Katrina 5 years ago. “If the situation progresses like they think it will, he’ll be able to see the spill from his front porch,” my son said. “Wow. Not to mention what it’s doing to the fishing industry that hasn’t even recovered from Katrina—we really need to pray for these people.” It touched my heart to hear my oldest son express such concern—I hope he always has such compassion for others and a heart that turns to God for help and refuge.
The exchange with my son made me think about the huge Jonah lesson we taught this past weekend in Elementary—goldfish crackers flying through the room out of a leaf blower, Pastor Shawn putting live fish in his mouth and spitting them out, trying to rescue “Jonah” from the nasty guts of the whale…awesome fun if you’re a kid! But there was something Pastor Shawn said when he was discussing the offering for Xai Xai that really stuck with me. He wanted the kids to tell him what they could DO for the children over in Xai Xai. “PRAY!!” several kids shouted. “Yes, of course PRAY. But what else?” Pastor Shawn challenged them. “Pray some more?” the kids said. I was sitting in with the older boys and whispered, “Raise money--have a car wash!!” Their hands shot up. Suddenly a girl at the front of the room said, “We could raise money & have a CAR WASH!!!” But it got the boys thinking, and before long they were shouting out, “MOW THE LAWN!” “SAVE SOME OF MY ALLOWANCE TO GIVE!” and the girls added things like, “HAVE A BAKE SALE!” The kids went from feeling like little kids who “could ONLY pray” to feeling like proactive young people who could come up with creative solutions to help others. They realized they are world changers!
On the Family Devotions that go home every Sunday, there is a section entitled, “Change the World.” Please don’t breeze through this—you have a few short years to instill in your child that they have the means within them (with God’s help, of course!) to change that which is around them. Find ways together this week to Change the World! Then tell us about it!
I’m thinking my son and I should have a brainstorming session this afternoon on a course of action to take in addition to praying for the people in the news story…
