Colored Pencils

I have never met anyone who didn't know how to color. When you see a three year old girl at home, you figure that they know what to do with a colored pencil, even if they can't stay inside the lines. On Wednesday, Michelle and I helped out with Maaike's girls' Bible study, Bana Basi ya Kopela. It was held at a school building on the other side of town. The Bible study is focused on teenaged girls, but there are always a lot of little one that show up and just fall asleep. So Michelle and I planed a lesson for the little ones. We were in a classroom made of mud bricks and concrete, with a chalkboard on the fron wall and 4 rows of wooden benches. We had 14 little children, most of them about three years old. We did a puppet show for them (all in Lingala of course) and then helped them with a memory verse. They got a piece of candy if they could say the verse. Then we handed out paper with the verse written on it in bubble letters and a picture of a flower. We gave each child a colored pencil and were suprised when they just sat there holding the pencil and looking at us. They didn't know what to do! We went around and demonstrated for them and after about 10 minutes they were finally comfortable doing it on their own. They were satisfied to just sit there for 45 minutes coloring the same picture, with the same color. I was struck by the fact that at home, they would have been fighting over colors after about 5 minutes and bored of coloring after 20. But these kids were so happy. The little things in life brought them the greatest joy.