Devotional Thoughts

I was a tent mother for a group of third and fourth graders during one of our church's marketplace Vacation Bible schools. In this program we recreate a scene as it might have looked in first century Jerusalem to give the children a sense of what life was back then. We had various market vendors, potters, weavers and even street beggars.

One day as we left the synagogue following worship, beggars approached us asking for money. Most of the children gave coins they had made earlier in the week. But one boy, after observing the situation ran to our family tent and came back with his lunch. Giving it to the beggars, he told them his lunch was theirs to eat.

This boy, new to our congregation, had earlier experienced years of physical and emotional abuse. He now had a loving family caring for him, and the message of Christian caring had taken root in his young heart.

Joyce Coleman
Floyds Knobb, Indiana

This devotional thought was taken from the book Small Wonders: Children's Faith Stories from the Indiana United Methodist Church, compiled and edited by Lynne DeMichele.

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