{"id":6553,"date":"2015-06-01T02:23:24","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T02:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6553"},"modified":"2015-06-01T02:23:24","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T02:23:24","slug":"kindness-observed-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6553","title":{"rendered":"Kindness observed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\">My church will be launching into its annual vacation Bible school today. There will be a four-day session each week for the next two weeks\u00a0for kids\u2014from teensy-tiny to eighth grade\u2014and it will be jam-packed with amazing kid-things to do and outstanding Bible drama and worship every day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\">I\u2019ve volunteered in this event for several years. My job for the past couple of years has been to check kids out of their cars in the morning and help to make sure they made it to their various\u00a0groups safely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\">This is what I wrote about my experience at my church&#8217;s kids&#8217; camp a couple of years ago:<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I just finished working with my church&#8217;s vacation Bible school this week. Now, I&#8217;m not in the state of Texas, but my church may as well be!\u00a0 Almost everything it does is<strong> BIG<\/strong>, especially this summer outreach to kids. My job was to help direct traffic as parents\u00a0dropped off their children, aiding as kids hopped out of vehicles, and directing them to &#8220;walkers&#8221;\u2014individuals from age\u00a0fifteen to eighty\u2014who walked them to the crosswalk and then to their stations.<\/p>\n<p>As I participated in this massive movement of munchkins, I was very aware of the friendliness of the volunteers serving all around me. Kind words, gentle humor, and great encouragement filled the atmosphere as hundreds\u2014no, literally thousands\u2014of kids said goodbye to their parents and hello to the fun-filled environment awaiting them.<\/p>\n<p>And I observed parents in their cars, vans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and jeeps respond to the thoughtful smiles, waves, and well-wishes just as much as their children. I watched, in more than one case, tension just drain away from a frazzled mom\u00a0when a\u00a0volunteer acknowledged her with a smile and a parting word of encouragement.<\/p>\n<p>And I thought, &#8220;This is how we are to operate every day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.<\/em> Colossians 4:5-6<\/li>\n<li><em>Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near.\u00a0<\/em> Philippians 4:5<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Despite the chaos swirling in the world, we can walk in confidence that our God is on the throne. And we can also know for a fact that He\u00a0longs to show forth His love and stability through us as we engage more and more consistently in everyday random acts of kindness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\">If your church is holding\u00a0a VBS this summer\u2014or you know of others that are\u2014pray for those events. The adults and teens volunteering their time could use your prayers for strength, grace, stamina, and wisdom from God as they reach out to boys and girls and younger teens who may have never clearly heard the gospel before\u00a0in their lives. Pray that God will prepare the hearts of these kids for an encounter with Him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\">May the hand of God be upon every church campus involved this summer\u00a0in presenting the gospel to our youngest generation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Dorothy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My church will be launching into its annual vacation Bible school today. There will be a four-day session each week for the next two weeks\u00a0for kids\u2014from teensy-tiny to eighth grade\u2014and it will be jam-packed with amazing kid-things to do and outstanding Bible drama and worship every day. I\u2019ve volunteered in this event for several years. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everyday-observations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6553"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6555,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553\/revisions\/6555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}