Herding Cats…

Imagine a classroom full of 4 to 6 year olds…
Imagine they are going on a field trip to the museum…
Imagine they are excited and distracted…
Imagine they speak very little English…
Imagine they have 30 minutes to kill before they leave…
Now imagine the pastor asks you to teach them a bible story…
...in English…
You have a 30 second elevator ride to come up with something…
...anything…
Too late, you’re there…

Anyone on our June mission trip will fully understand. The children are running around the room and the adults are looking at you to hear what your next word will be. They rub your arms and pull your beard. They climb up your legs and hug you till it hurts. All the while you are teaching them Jesus Loves Me in English, and you can’t shake the feeling they are only taking advantage of you.

That’s what happened to me this morning. I was desperate. I was sinking and gasping for breath…literally. But in the midst of the chaos came a beacon of light. As I was struggling to do something…anything, one of the ladies came from the back of the room with something in her hand. It glimmered as the morning light shown through the window and reflected off. I wondered what it could be, and as she came closer I saw my salvation. She held in her hand an open CD case. My eyes left her knowing smile and traveled to see the greatest words ever written by man… “I Am the Music Man.”

”Glory, Hallelujah!!” I thought. I can do that!!!! “Hey kids, do you want to sing 'Music Man?!?'” “Yeah!!” came the reply. We all sang it a thousand times in June and one more time couldn’t hurt a bit. Whew! Later I thanked the lady with the CD case. She said, “I understand.”

I had stopped dreaming about the “big bass big bass big bass drum”, but I guess it will be back tonight…

By the way, I’m sitting in the Calvary Church café and they just turned on some music. Anybody ever heard Korean hip hop? Oh, now they’re singing. Ok, much better.