Wednesdays

For the past year and a half I have had the privilege of teaching our kids program on Wednesday nights at my church, and it is easily the second biggest highlight of my week (the biggest, of course, being the Sunday School hour on Sunday mornings when I'm in the nursery!)

We have four kids who come on a regular basis and a handful of others who come and go. Last May we started memorizing the books of the Bible, and two weeks ago we finished learning all of them. Last week I printed out a list of the Old Testament books and cut them out then made the kids put them back into order. They did so great, only mixing up a couple of the minor prophets. Let's face it—who hasn't mixed those up at one time or another? 

Their favorite activity is coloring, which gives me an easy lesson on weeks I'm too busy to plan anything big. Pick a Bible story, find a picture they can color while I read it to them, and they're happy and content. That has given me so much flexibility to start connecting stories with the book names they're learning. We have an Esther Ruth in the class, and as a result, those two books are, somewhat biasedly, our favorite books and stories.

We also love to sing together, or just dance/run around in circles while the music plays. Our favorite song is Ha, La, La, in which we have to do things like squeeze knees and scratch backs, or, as is most often the case, just scream, "Ha-la-la-la-la-la-lay-luiah" at the top of our lungs. I'm sure the youth group, meeting directly across the hall, is every bit as thrilled about music time as we are.

These pictures were taken during a rendition of the song. No matter how many times I say we aren't going to get on top of the table, we somehow always manage to end up there. My constant, ineffective, fussing about this seems to fall on deaf ears. My love for them and my example to them is, I hope, falling on tender hearts, which one day will help shape these kids to grow into valuable instruments in God's hands.