Some random thoughts......May 11

I've had some random thoughts that I will share. Since the Psalms we've been reading cover such a wide topic, I'm sure that it will fit in somewhere.

For our exchange students graduation, we drove to Tennessee. She (as all of our students have) has been such a blessing to our family and given us much more than we have ever 'given' her. It has been amazing to watch God work in her life. She came, as frightened and shy 15 year old girl. Her english was mediocre. Any little difficulty dissolved her to tears. Having lived through one 'drama queen' child, I was quite prepared to set her well on her path to emotional stability. Every new challenge was enormous.....but God prepared each situation in advance for her and set all the right people there to help her. This weekend I got to meet some of them and see her meet one of her goals- to graduate from college.

We went to the little Korean church she attended while there.  Including her and her mom, our other exchange student, my husband and I, there were 15 people in attendance. I marveled at how they could keep the doors open....pay the bills.....I wondered if they were a mission church. Then I met a couple of the members- a college professor of engineering and an orthopedic surgeon. Ah...how silly of me. Of course, God puts all the right people in the right places.

The childrens lesson was done in english for the 3 little kiddos there. The pastor, in heavy Korean accent, asked them "How can we honors our fathers and mothers?" (honors is not a typo) It was so cute. They talked a lot about obedience and respect. Hmm...what a novel concept. The rest of the sermon was in Korean. But afterward, we had a great little Korean dinner in the tiny kitchen of the church. And the orthopedic surgeon, who has lived in the US since he was 4 gave his children wise and unique counsel. He was passing out mothers day cookies and then juice and the kids were told, more than once, to wait their turn until all the adults were served and then they would get theirs. They whined and fussed and squirmed but they waited. He was not harsh or authoritarian with them...but he was teaching them something that kids need to learn- respect for adults and that the world does not revolve around them.

The goal of raising kids is to raise respectful, God fearing and God loving adults. I know that often kids are treated too harshly and I'm not saying that's good at all...but I think that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of overindulgence and then they think that their happiness (because we teach them this!) is the most important thing in the world.

On a similar note, I saw a great video from a missionary with incredible vision that our church supports on FB today. He totally gets his kids involved in the kingdom. This little guy is going to set the world on fire someday!! At 3 years old, when his grandma (my friend) told him that she was studying about Elijah, he said, "Now grandma, are you sure, because there is EliJAH and EliSHA" , and he told her the difference.

I think I did a pretty fair job with my kids. I'm proud of all of them. But I could have done better in the deptarment of raising them to be unselfish, Kingdom building, God serving world changers! And this world needs more like this little guy!  Parents, grandparents: set your hearts to raise world changers!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7bcD858DSY&feature=player_embedded#!