Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed (and they have a lot of fun, too)

Tomorrow night marks the end of our AWANA season. Our family’s Wednesday nights will morph from chaos—“Where’s your bag?! Do you have your Bible? Yes, you can eat that quesadilla in the car! James 2:10! Anybody know James 2:10?!”—to relative tranquility. All three of our older kids have been clubbers this year, and for the first time, I was a leader of Braden and Addison’s group.

This after swearing off any kind of children’s ministry years ago. It was a Sunday-school morning in which I was kicked, scratched, and punched, all by the same three-year-old girl, that convinced me that children who do not actually come out of my body are not my calling. (And I’ll spare you the details of having to sit in a regurgitated pool of some other woman’s breastmilk in the infant room. Yeah, not my thing.)

Persuaded by guilt and a nagging longing to spend more time with my two oldest, I caved last fall, donning my painfully cheesy red “Sparky” shirt and tithing my Wednesday nights to the K-2nd graders at our church. And wouldn’t you just know it—I’ve loved every minute of it.

Getting the best group ever didn’t hurt. Not only did no one attempt to bite me, but they were actually quite lovable for the most part. It was not a stretch at all for me to cheer with them when they nailed their Scripture verses and received a new award. I cuddled up with the girls during the speaker sessions. And I high-fived and grunted with the boys during the games.

The games were the best. By luck of the draw, we ended up with a group of boys freakishly endowed with speed, coordination, and competitive drive. We four adult leaders had to suppress a smile of pride as our team crushed the competition—which usually came in the form of a pint-sized six-year-old girl who was afraid of getting stepped on. But, no matter. We gave it our all, as if it were our Olympics. The few times I took a turn running around the game circle harkened me back to my days as a high-school sprinter. Instead of my dad yelling at (er, I mean for) me, I had George, my 6’6 behemoth co-leader in his red Sparky shirt. I wasn’t going to disappoint George or the 14 cheering kids at his side.

Our Wednesday-night group experienced the gamut of real life together. We celebrated our victories (the aforementioned game domination), cried over our disappointments (an artistic masterpiece destroyed by another’s wayward crayon), communed over shared experiences (numerous trips to the bathroom and more lost teeth than I could count), and mourned deep losses (the sudden death of two of our girls’ sister). And hopefully through this spastic microcosm of the bigger world they learned a little more about how much God loves them.

So Adin, Josiah, Rachel, Caleb, Joey, Jay, Madison, Lauren, Brianna, Drew, Michaela, and of course Braden and Addison, this blog’s for you. You snuck into my affection when I wasn’t looking.