Golden Sticks and Rubies

For the next week and a half or so, there are about half a dozen missionary couples on campus for furlough seminar (meetings /training that takes place during their "break" in the States), so I have been able to hang out with the kids and help entertain them while their parents sit in meetings.

In Bethany speak, "get to" means that I, and the rest of my class, were volunteered to help with furlough seminar months before we even knew that there was going to be a furlough seminar -- at which point, it becomes less of a "get to" thing and more of a requirement. But, hey, so long as we are talking about kids, I'm okay with that.

Yesterday, on the way to and from the gym, we played follow the leader, sneaking through the building like ninjas (Ninjas are quiet, after all!) and then searching for "treasure" as we walked across campus to the gym. True to form, when I announced that we were searching for treasure, I didn't really have any idea what I meant by that (not that I would ever make things up as I go...), but the kids figured it out, and, by the time Chris "inspected" all of the treasure outside of the gym door and then "hid" it in the corner (away from anyone who might try to take it!), they had picked up enough "treasure" to fill his hands with dandelion gold, rose petal rubies, leaf emeralds, sparkly rock diamonds, and even a sick made of pure gold.

To the kids, they were just about as cool as the real thing, at least in that moment, and I have to think that God would agree.

The funniest thing about working with a bunch of missionary kids (MKs), though, is the things that come out of their mouths in those random kid moments. For instance, in the middle of story today, I asked the kids a question, got an answer or two, and then called on one of the third graders, only to be informed, very matter of factly, "In China, they laugh at you when you fall down, even if it really hurts."

Umm...yes. Yes, they do. (It's a way of saving face and preventing shame, kind of like how an American might pop up and try to make a joke out of their own clumsiness.) Now...about Jesus and the feeding of the five thousand...

It's the equivalent of the, "My Aunt Susan's neighbor's daughter's best friend has a bunny," that you get from kids anywhere, but, generally, a little easier to follow than trying to figure out who, exactly, owns the bunny!