Children’s Response to a Flooded Church

Two Sundays ago, I decided to turn up in church in a newly sown traditional outfit I really loved. I had sown this outfit for a friend’s wedding the Saturday before and I was ready to rock this to church. I matched it with my red shoes and crowned it with my nicely wrapped head-tie. I was pleased with what looked backed at me from the mirror. Off to church I drove with no flat slippers as I never envisioned needing them.

Now the evening before, we (myself and some of the children) had cleaned up the children’s church and prepared it for service on Sunday. So you can imagine my surprise when I met a pool of water in the church hall. How on earth did this happen? The roofs are not leaking and it didn’t rain. The water level was a few inches above the ground, enough to cover up our feet. I had to hurry back home to get more mopping sticks and buckets and slippers for the job. To my amazement, the children took it in good faith and had swung to action even before I returned. They took off their fancy shoes and socks and stepped into the water, competitively mopping, scooping and pouring out buckets of water.

I would not have gotten the picture above but for the kids insistence on someone taking a picture as they worked. We spent more than an hour scooping out water and mopping the whole area. We lost count of the number of buckets being poured out after about ten were taken out and we couldn’t see much difference. We eventually traced the water invasion to a faulty tap in the bathroom.

I began to imagine what would have been if this happened to adults, what their reaction would have been and how the buck would have been passed from person to person. How people would have been totally upset about having to begin a clean up session when they only came to “fellowship”, how we could even complain for days on end about how the service was disrupted and even conclude on God’s anger over the situation. Hmmm…

The kids did none of that. They didn’t dwell long on the problem, but sought a solution almost immediately. They didn’t brood over the disruption of their service but embraced the situation and even started singing songs along the line. They worked together as a team and had fun working. We spent the rest of the time we had to share a few lessons from the previous week and have our snacks.

You see why I love children, I learn everyday from them…

Matt. 18:3 Then he said to them, “I can guarantee this truth: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”