“My Sister Was Born in 18 . . . “
Flu and storm warnings made for a small group at our Wednesday night Bible study this week. Our local troubles continued on Thursday morning. As I prepared to go to the gym, Ray said, “I’m going to go check the road.” When I saw our car backing down the road to our driveway, I knew the verdict. No gym for me. When I checked the news, I saw that about thirty county schools in our area were closed for illness or flooding. We are not alone.
The storms Wednesday night did not deter the parents of the children who come each Wednesday for our outreach program, though. Most of our regulars were there. However, sickness kept the elementary and teen class teachers away, so I needed to step up from assistant in the elementary class to teacher of a combined elementary and teen class. I was thankful when my friend Fran said she would come in and help me.
I decided to teach the children from Acts 17, emphasizing verse 26
. . . He made from one man
every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth,
having determined their appointed times
and the boundaries of their habitation . . .
Acts 17:26
I’m sharing this with you because it produced an adorable reaction from one little girl and because you might enjoy sharing this lesson with your children.
I wanted to help the children know that it is God’s will that they live in this particular time and in this particular place. After sharing from Acts 17, I showed them three of our Hometown History videos.
I also wanted to encourage the children to be grateful for where they live. I handed out a worksheet. It had a simple box with the passage printed at the top. I told them to draw a local place below the verse. We had a variety: a home, the local Dollar General (“What color is the roof of Dollar General?” the girl had asked when she began), the local grocery store, the exterior of our church building, and a quite detailed picture of its interior with pulpit, pews, and even the floral arrangement in front of the baptistery.
Not long after the videos began, one little girl came to me very excited. “My sister was born in 18 . . . .” She thought some more and said, “No, not 18 . . . ” She had not chosen a good time for her story, so I reluctantly asked her to sit down and told her she could tell me later. Meanwhile, my heart smiled while I thought about her connecting these stories of people who are still living with the 1800s and also connecting her sister to the 1800s.
When I had a chance to hear her story, she had figured it out. “My sister was born in 1991,” she said. She said that when she gets to see her older sister — she looked sad and told me that is only once a year because her sister lives in North Carolina — her sister takes her around showing her places where she played when she was a child.
To this little girl, 1991 seems like a very long time ago. I wonder if she thinks her sister is old, too. After all, she is 29!
It is comforting to know that God placed each of us here now. Sometimes our challenge is in being content in the here and now.
Again:
. . . He made from one man
every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth,
having determined their appointed times
and the boundaries of their habitation . . .
Acts 17:26