Conversations

There are afternoons and evenings when the camera bag slung over the shoulder goes unnoticed by the very person it's being slung around by, and good intentions to capture an event in photos don't pan out.

The shoulder was mine this week, so no photos...just some words.


Little Tyke was descending his apartment stairs to hop onto the Kids Klub van. He had on an over-sized leather jacket since the weather has finally taken a cool turn, and the babysitter or family friend (not his mother) was standing in the doorway to see him and his sister off. On his way down the stairs, Little Tyke felt compelled to share this information, "I have a fever!"

"Oh, you do?" I said, "Did you go to school today?"

The response: "Nope! But I took some Tylenol."

A gentle suggestion to Little Tyke that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to come to Kids Klub yielded no small amount of tears, but he complied and stayed home. Little Tyke's class made him a get well card, and the snack that was included with it perhaps sent a little sunshine into his evening.

I thank God for children that want to come to Kids Klub!

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The mother tearfully approached me a few weeks ago and asked for prayer.

"B may be a little upset this evening. We just found out that her dad needs to go in for lymph node testing. It might be cancer."

I told the mother we would pray and that I would pass the request along to B's Kids Klub teacher as well.

Fast forward a few weeks.

I asked B how her dad is doing.

"He has Stage 4 cancer," she said. "He hasn't been working since he's had doctor appointments. And he's going to have something called chemo." This she said almost with a question mark, as if she had no clue what chemo is or if she was even pronouncing it correctly.

She then said brightly, "But his work still has insurance for him."

I thank God that we can pray, and know that He hears, and know that He is control of fragile situations.


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"Who is God?"

How do you begin to answer that question? Should you talk about His character, His creation, His love, His home, His work of salvation? Of course, ALL of it matters, but how do you condense God into a 10-minute expose to a 1st grader who apparently has a photograph of God at home, but doesn't understand Who He is?

I thank God for young minds who ask earnest questions -- questions that matter. And I thank God that He's given us a whole book of 66 chapters to learn about Who He is and teach young minds about Who He is.