s´mores and love

Mini-s'mores, a treat not known in Mexico

A few weeks ago, Abraham and I started a special class for the preteens and teens on Sunday afternoon, a class that we teach before the general Bible class.  I teach the girls, and Abraham teaches the boys.  We are discussing love, dating, and marriage with them.  The youngest in the group is 9 years old, which may seem young for thinking of those topics, but many marry or begin dating very young here.  One of the teens who comes quite faithfully on Sunday afternoons became pregnant when she was 14 and now has an almost-three-year-old son, and she talks often about love and marriage.

Considering the home situations of many of the children and the negative influences that surround them, we pray that Biblical teaching about real love can help steer the young people to healthy, wise choices.  This last Sunday we wanted to focus on agape - Godly love.  As an illustration, we made mini-s'mores.  We were going to tell one of the teens to give another teen a s'more at the beginning of the class without giving out the s'mores first.  We were planning to use this illustration to show that we cannot give what we have not received, and also use an unfamiliar treat to show that God's love is unique and special.

We postponed the class and illustration, because only six children attended the kids' club last Sunday afternoon, due to an event in the downtown square.  On other Sunday afternoons, we have had a growing number of children attending, including some recent additions that have visited after being in reading class during the week.

Two of the reading students have now finished the first book in the curriculum Mas Luz and are beginning the second one.  The younger girl asked me, "How many books are there?"  I told her there are only two and said, "When you finish the second book..." Very excited she interrupted, "When I finish the second one, I'll be able to read!"  This girl also struggles with a speach impediment where she pronounces 'l' for 'r' and also has difficulties pronouncing 'bl'.  Since two of my mother-in-law's sons also had that problem, she taught me some exercises to help the girl pronounce words correctly.  We began the exercises last week.

Abishael is growing in leaps and bounds.  We recently took him for a well-baby check-up, and the doctor said he is doing very well.  Abishael loves to "talk" to us, earnestly trying to communicate his opinions and ideas with coos and squeals.  He is a joy.