Resting from Childcare :: 12 of 31 Days of Blogging :: Rest

Day 12 :: Rest

In this season of my life, the rest I crave is rest from children, rest from the constant needs, the constant changes.  In All Joy and No Fun: the Paradox of Modern Parenting, Jennifer Senior explains why children are so exhausting.  We adults can never get into a flow; every time we start to settle into a task we get interrupted.  Washing dishes is fine, but it's exhausting when every two minutes I need to stop what I am doing and get something for my kids or redirect them to a better activity.  Right now the rest I crave is getting to sit and talk to other adults, being able to have a conversation, getting to think about something interesting to me without being interrupted. 

I crave that rest. Right now being a BSF Children's leader is one more thing that exhausts me.  The leaders meeting is good, but it does not give us a chance for real conversation, especially since our leaders' circle has more than fifty women in it.  I'm lucky if I can say a sentence during the whole two hours.  And then, of course, caring for, teaching, and directing one-year-olds for 2+ hours is also tiring.  The only restful part of the whole process is the prayer time in the leaders meeting.  We do pray together for about 20 minutes and that is a time of rest for me, a time to connect and focus on what I need to think about, who God is.

Part of why I am blogging about being a Children's Leader is because I appreciate the privilege it is to be able to speak the gospel to these children, but I am not sure if this is really what I should be doing during this season of my life. 

Dare I say I am a teacher? :: 11 of 31 Days of Blogging :: Teach

Wow, I see now why it's important to blog every day.  I stop for a day or two and all of a sudden it's been a month! 

Part of why I have taken such a long break is because some real life craziness has been going on but part of it is that I have been dreading this prompt: Teach.  "Teach" or "Teacher" always makes me think of James 3:1 "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." (NIV 1984)

I am called a BSF Children's Leader, but what I am doing part of each morning is teaching 11 month to 20 month old children bible stories.  And every day I teach my children by how I live my life and whether that matches up with what I say.  I say we should trust God, but does my life show trust or fear?  I say God loves us, but then I feel insecure about myself and my abilities, like I have forgotten about grace and am going back to live under the law.

Thinking of myself as a teacher makes me feel nervous, sometimes quite afraid.  Perhaps that means I need to spend more time thinking and praying about what God has called me to.  I know Christ dwells in me and that's the only reason I can presume to be a teacher.

A Beneficial BSF Policy :: 10 of 31 Days of Blogging :: Care

Day 10 :: Care 
Care … I’m really not sure where to go with this prompt, so let’s see where writing obvious things takes me. 

I care about the kids at BSF.  It’s a bit amazing to me how quickly and how much I can start to care about them.  There is one little girl, C, who is very serious.  When my co-leader does something that is a bit goofy (like using a very dramatic voice) that would make other kids laugh, C looks at her like, “You are a grown up. You shouldn’t be acting that way.”  C is also a very clear talker for someone who is only about a year and half old.  She was very upset the first week she was at BSF, but close to the end, I realized that unlike the other kids, it actually made sense to ask her why she was crying and what she wanted.  If I could lean close enough to hear her over the other kids, she would say very clearly “goldfish crackers please.” 

BSF has a policy that we can’t work in a class if we have our own kids in that class.  I am starting to see why this is an excellent policy.  If I had a child in the class, I would feel guilty for caring equally about other kids and my focus would always be on how my child is doing.  I would be tempted to compare others’ behavior to my daughters and either to feel proud or dismayed about how they measured up.  Instead, with my kids busily engaged in another class, I can start to care about all these toddlers as unique people.  The little victories are rewarding, like a one of our younger girls finally feeling safe enough to get from the volunteer’s lap and start playing with the other kids. 

Enthusiasm :: 9 of 31 Days of Blogging :: Join

Day 9 :: Join

Joining the BSF Leader’s circle … Everyone is so incredibly enthusiastic about BSF.  I keep being asked, “Isn’t BSF wonderful?” and it makes me wonder if I am in the wrong place.  BSF is a good bible study.  It keeps us in the word and asks questions that require us to pay attention.  The notes that are passed out every week as a sort of “answer key” give a rather dry, but accurate explanation of what the text means.  It is good.  But is not the only bible study out there and there are pros and cons to each. BSF is very organized and structured; that means that we cover the lesson exactly as planned, but we don’t have space to really get to know people.  I attend another bible study where we don’t always get all the way through the homework, but we have time to share our struggles and what it going on in our life and how the lesson affected us.  There are times I really like each style and other times that both style annoy me.

 So I have been wondering how enthusiastic I need to be about something to join it.  My husband says enthusiasm really isn’t necessary.  He is the sort of person who very rarely gets enthusiastic about things, but he joins organizations and serves in ministry opportunities and is happy enough if he was able to play a role in helping people be more efficient.  He tells me that if someone says something based in emotion, like “Isn’t BSF wonderful?” his response will be a factual one, like “I appreciated the section on God’s holiness.”  By responding with a factual statement, he allows the other person to either accept that as agreeing enthusiasm or provide their own factual statements, which might start a real discussion. 

 But the only thing I can think to say in response to “isn’t BSF wonderful?” is “Well, it’s a lot of work.”  That really doesn’t feel like an appropriate response.  I am enthusiastic about the children’s program, which I guess is why I am a Children’s Leader.  I continue to be amazed how much my four and two year old daughters learn, so when people talk about how wonderful the children’s program is, I can join in appropriately.  But as far as the grown-up part of what we do in BSF, it’s a bible study, a very organized bible study. 

Speaking the Gospel :: 8 of 31 Days of Blogging :: Say

Day 8 :: Say 

I am in the rather unusual position (or at least I think it’s unusual) of not interacting with non-Christians on a regular basis.  As a stay-at-home-mom, I can really only go do things where my kids are welcome or where there is childcare.  While we do go to parks and library story time where I presume there is a wide mix of people of different faiths, while we are there I am so busy keeping track of and correcting my kids that I can’t do much more than say “hi” to other moms.  The only times I have a chance to really talk to people other than my family is at Bible study and church and the programs they have for moms.  As a result, the last time I can remember having to explain anything about my faith to anyone was when I was still working before I had kids. 

Being a BSF Children’s leader has given me the opportunity to say the gospel.  When I started, I was surprised how much I needed that.  I hear the gospel constantly, but I don’t get much chance to say it back to anyone.  (Yes, I know I am supposed to tell my own kids, but it usually happens either in reading bible stories or in one sentence explanations of why we are doing something.)  I hear the gospel on Sundays, at BSF, at Bible Study, while I’m doing my homework, and while I listen to the radio.  Now I have a chance to say the gospel to someone else.  Yes, they often seem much more interested in their fish crackers than what I am saying, but it’s still a chance to witness to what God has done, and for that I am grateful.

Getting to the Car :: 7 or 31 Days of Blogging :: Go

Day 7 :: Go

 

Ironically, even though being a BSF Children’s leader requires a significant amount of homework, two mornings out of my week, and working with toddlers who really want their mommies back for sometimes more than two hours straight, the hardest part of all is getting my own children to leave BSF.  I have girls who are four and two. While I teach one of the toddler classes, they are in their own classes learning the week’s lesson in age appropriate ways.  I am usually still waiting for mom’s to pick of their toddler when another BSF worker walks my kids over to my class.  When they get to me they are both hyper and tired.  My four year old especially seems to have used up all her listening abilities for the day.  At that point I also have been using all my powers of listening and patience and empathy and gentle but firm redirection to appropriate activities until they are utterly depleted.  And I feel like I am done dealing with kids.  Getting my kids from that room to the car feels like a herculean task.  I just want them to go.  They want to go different directions.

Preparing Children's Bible Stories :: 6 of 31 Days of Blogging :: Know

Day 6 :: Know 

When we get ready to teach the kids the bible lesson, we write out our whole story.  But when we are in with the kids, I have found I never have a chance to look at what I wrote.  The first two weeks I had a little girl in my arms who would cry if I tried to put her down.  In the weeks after that, I was usually passing out fish crackers.  I never even thought to try to reach for my story because I had never used it.   

We teach the kids essentially the same lesson we have been studying all we long in our grown up homework.  We have gone over the homework in the children’s and group leaders training meeting.  We have read over a sample story that give us suggestions on what to teach for a three-year-old level and then we adapt and re-write that story for our age group.  

 So by the time we tell it to the kids, we know it.  We know it forwards and backwards.   By teaching it, it seeps into us simply by repetition.  It feel like a whole new level of knowing, so different from how I think when I am just doing the normal homework designed for adults.

Getting Stuck Sorting out a Story :: 5 of 31 Days of Blogging :: Stuck

Day 5 :: Stuck

 

A big part of being a BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) Children’s Leader is the preparation homework we are required to do.  It involves writing up the story we will tell, preparing questions to ask, selecting hymns, and developing introduction sentences that tie the hymns to the day’s lesson.  

I frequently get stuck writing the story.  Sometimes it is because there are so many things I want to include and I am not sure how to say them without making the story too long for a fourteen-month-old.  Other times, it is because the concepts are complex and we need to keep the vocabulary simple.  And sometimes it is because there really doesn’t seem to be much of a story.  

BSF really takes the children through the Bible in a way much deeper than what Sunday School at church does.  For example, at church, we covered Moses’s birth, God calling Moses, the plagues, Passover, and the parting of the Red Sea all in one week.  In contrast, in BSF, we took six weeks to cover that material in BSF, piece by piece.  This week the story was about God telling Moses about the Promised Land, so there was really no narrative.  That gets difficult when I am trying to write up a story that someone less than two will understand. The up-side is that the process of trying to sort out what to say and how to say it to kids forces me to think about the Bible in new ways in order to get unstuck.

Learning in BSF :: 4 of 31 Days of Blogging :: Learn

Day 4 :: Learn

With my first born daughter, I was worried I would push too many ideas at her too fast.  I didn’t want to confuse her or have her learn Bible stories wrong and have to unlearn them later.  In BSF (Bible Study Fellowship), however, I am learning that even very small children can appreciate Bible stories with complex themes.  The fourteen- and fifteen-month-olds listen intently and their moms and grandmas have told us that when they talk about Moses later after class, the children know the names and remember something about the stories. 

I am also impressed with the way BSF does not shy away from difficult topics.  One of the lessons we taught the kids when we were learning about Moses and Aaron going to Egypt to confront pharaoh was that sometimes obeying God makes life harder.  I am relieved that we are not simply telling them the happy messages of the Bible, such as how God loves them and that God will take care of them.   They are hearing right from the beginning that life can be tough and we shouldn’t be surprised that life hurts sometimes.  And I am learning that I don’t need to tiptoe around what the Bible teaches.