Saturday, November 19, 2011

World Changers

We just might have a few world changers in this house.
Last night we had a spontaneous teaching moment.
The kids found the magazines on the counter from World Vision and Samaritan's Purse.
The ones where you can choose an item to purchase to help someone in poverty.
We've purchased things before- they are familiar with the catalogs.
Carter said, "Let me see those."
We started talking about what we should choose.
They have a huge jar of pennies from my parents and decided we'd use that for it and then they all decided they'd chip in from their piggy banks.
The exact amount they'd each chip in was up for grabs and everyone had a thought.
I stayed out of this part of it.
I like to hear them wrestle with themselves.
I also like it to be their idea.
Whether a little or a lot you can see the wrestling.
You can see the desire.
Sounds a lot like myself.
We started looking through the catalogs and they were asking about certain items.
The two that they got stuck on the most were mosquito nets and a share in helping a child with an airline ticket that will save their life.
I told them how many pennies they had in the jar and the boys figured out that if they all added $2 to it that they could get two mosquito nets.
They liked this.
Then Tatum chimed in . . . .
"If we gather all our money we can get them stuff so they can go to the places they need to go to like a hotel."
She kept going (she's using her hands the whole time), "We should get some money and gather it together so we could buy them a sink and then get a bunch of wood so we could build them a kitchen and a fridge. They could get some cold air and put it in the fridge then. That would be awesome for them."
The entire time she had such passion in her voice.
She had the look of "I'm gonna change the world"
We talked about how rich we are in this world.
They made so many comments I wish I could remember.
Somehow we went from that conversation to orphanages (a conversation we've had several times now this last month) and I told them about a little child I held all day from an orphanage in Mexico when I was in high school. I told them that somewhere I had a picture of me and that child.
They wanted me to find the picture so we could put it on the fridge.

They started getting artsy on me and saying we could make a big board or poster about homeless people or poor people.
Tatum said she was going to put the bulletin board in her room.
Then Ian took our chalkboard frame down and said, "Can I erase this and put a verse on there about orphans?"
Me:  "Yes."
So we found two verses and he did that.

I found this interesting because the verse we've been looking at on this sign for many many months was, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight oh Lord."
We don't have the concept down yet.
I'm still struggling with it.
I keep wondering when our family will get this down.
But then the thought hit me tonight.
Maybe if we focus on these new verses "take care of the poor" and "help the orphans in their distress" our words and meditations might naturally become more pleasing.
Does that make sense to anyone but me?

I love how Ian misspelled the word poor. I left it because that's what we are supposed to do - "pour ourselves out for the poor."


This is also in our bathroom now.

A couple Sundays ago was Orphan Sunday.
I was tipped off to it by a blog I follow.
We participated in a simple way by eating an "orphan" meal as a family (white rice plain out of one bowl, passing it around) and talking about orphans and praying for them.
Carter got up in the middle of that and brought me the sign from the bathroom that usually says "Wash those grubby hands. Love Mommy" and thought I should write "Take Care of Orphans" on it instead.
So I did.

So now I'm surrounded by these verses -- in my kids handwriting.
Hmmm.

I don't tell you all this to say "look at my kids, look at my family".
We're a normal American family doing normal American family things.
Please don't hear me say "look at us."
I tell you this because this week I have spent more physical time and more mental time thinking about money and our finances than I care to ever admit.
It's embarrassing.
It's challenging.
It's frustrating.

We. . . . have . . . . so . . . . much.
As I said very little while my kids were talking amongst themselves, making plans about their money tonight I just watched their faces.
Intense.
Serious.
Thinking.
I want their intense, serious, thinking faces when it comes to these things.
It's the time of year when the opportunities are EVERYWHERE.
It's always bugged me that we focus on it more now instead of all year.
But we do & it's still good.

I don't know what all is in store for my children's future.
Or mine really.
I just know that these world changing kids are changing my world just by listening to their child like faith.
Grab you some child like faith, engage your child and see what they teach you this season.

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3 comments:

Dana said...

MAKES TOTAL SENSE TO ME!!!
Loved this post, well I love them all. But, this one spoke to me. Those kiddos are so lucky to have you guys as parents. I think they're world changers for sure!!
xoxo

Lisa said...

Isn't it awesome how our kids can challenge us?! We've had some great conversations lately too, simply because of the World Vision & Compassion catalogs that came in the mail. Love what you did for Orphan Sunday, great idea!

Kimberlee Jost said...

I love it when a simple thing snowballs into something so much bigger---with ideas, and verses, and passion. God is doing something big here, and it made me cry and smile to see.

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