“Is the party today?”
“When is the party going to be?”
These are questions from the little people who have appeared at my door the past couple of days. The “little people” are my neighbor kids. The “party” is the backyard Bible club (5-Day Club) that my neighbor Amy and I will be hosting later in the summer for the kids who live near us.
“Party” came up in a backyard conversation Saturday. Elana, from two doors down, asked when we were going to have another one. She remembers a year ago at Christmas when I threw a birthday party for Jesus for the neighbor kids and she was one of two girls who came…We had fun!
I explained that we were going to be doing something else fun later on in the summer-a club for five days in a row in my backyard where we will have a Bible story, and some songs, and do some other fun things, and have a snack. Not a party exactly, I emphasized, but we’ll have fun.
So, the party question has come up the past two days. Two notes with the dates for the 5-Day Club have gone home to two families, with a jotted note promising “official” invitations to come a little later.
Will you pray for my neighbor kids if God brings them to your heart and mind? Elana, Christian, Tre, Diontre, Staci, Neveah, Jacob, and probably a few others, plus kids from two or three families who live near my friend Amy–these are the children we’ll be inviting to what truly could become the best party of their lives. And pray, too, for me to a good neighbor every day in the meantime.
Thanks.
“…or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbors: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it–that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.” (Luke 15:8-10, The Message)
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:40, NIV)
Pat Howard was a CEF missionary one summer back in the 1960’s. I remember my mom hosting a 5-day club in our yard, and Pat taught the lessons. I must have been seven or eight years old, which would put the year around 1963 or 1964. What a blessing, what an outreach!
I remember very clearly going to 5-day club at Mrs. Drum’s house when I was 6-yrs-old. That’s when I asked Jesus “into my heart”. It was the beginning of the best party of my life.
Chuck–I remember going to 5-Day-Clubs at Virginia Leece’s house.
Nancy – Thanks for sharing that part of your story–I had no idea!
Amy, I certainly will be praying for your “party”. 5-day clubs are part of my testimony, so they hold a very special place in my heart.
Anna–I’m hearing of so many people who have this ministry as part of their testimony! The ministry of CEF is near and dear to my heart, too, as I came to the Lord through a Good News Club co-hosted by my mom.