Tuesday night. BSF(Bible Study Fellowship) night. The night I normally loved dearly. But not tonight. I
was so tired and couldn't even speak in a complete English sentence
before class. How am I going to teaching the Bible lesson for the whole
20 minutes? My brain felt blank, even though I've prepared the whole
lesson last night and kept rehearsing it while driving today.
Five boys showed up. No girls. No girls?! Oh, boy!
Merely finished Bible lesson on time. Phew! What a relief! I thought I was gonna faint in the middle of it.
Well, there was a priceless moment coming right after Bible lesson.
During the discussion questions time, one question was "What do you have
that Jesus might use today?" The
background of this question was that Jesus was entering Jerusalem, and
he ordered two disciples to go into the village to get him a donkey.
And he said if the owner ask them, them should just say, "The Lord needs
to use it." And the owner would let them take it. And Jesus rode the
donkey into Jerusalem, just as the prophets had prophesied.
So
the question was asking the students to think of something that they
were willing to let Jesus use. After my co-leader read the question, a
boy who sat right next to me, whose name is Samuel, shot his hand in the
air, apparently very eager to answer that question. And he was
called.
"A limbo!" He shouted out his answer.
"A
---What?" my co-leader was confused. So were I and the others,
including our supervisor who was there observing that part of the
night. She did not come in the right time. Not for us.
"A limbo!" Sam replied excitedly and proudly.
(Well, this is the "limbo" I had in my mind.)
I leaned over to check his answer. And sure enough, "A Limbo"was exactly what was written on his paper.
"Can you explain to us why Jesus would use a limbo?" my co-leader asked nicely and patiently.
"You know, a limbo is a very long car-----" Sam explained.
I finally had a spark in my mind. "A limo!" I exclaimed.
(This is the "Limbo" Samuel had in his mind.)
The rest of the story was not hard to imagine. Everybody bursted into
laughter, including my co-leader, my supervisor and me, which was very
inappropriate for us leaders, 'cause we "Should never laugh at a
student's answer" according to the Leaders Manual. Of course the boys
went crazy. And who could blame them? I mean, a limbo?! Or even a
limo?! I could not have imagined Jesus riding in a limo. I had to
say, I truly envy this little boy's imagination.
Ever since that
moment, the classroom just went downhill. Once in a while some boy would
say the word "Limbo", and the other 4 would just lost control like
crazy monkeys. I tried not to laugh with them, but without much
success. My facial muscles still hurt even now.
The boys were
going gaga during the rest of the night. Couldn't they show just a
little bit respect to the leaders and to each other?! Couldn't they at
least manage a little bit of self-control?!
I was holding my
tongue most of the time when I was not teaching, swallowing down all the
threatening words I wanted to yell at them. My hands didn't behave
though; I ended up slapping one poor boy's arm. I said sorry
though.......
Gosh, I bet my co-leader must have felt as
ambarrassed as I was in front of our nice volunteer, who also happened
to be a former children's leader. I felt like crying somehow, and I
didn't even know why.
After class, several leaders were talking
by the stairs, and we joined them sheepishly, feeling like two
miserable losers. A Level 1 leader shared how a little girl cried
because of confusion during the game time. And our supervisor said that
all the classrooms were kind of wild tonight. I had to hug my
co-leader at that moment, for it was so encouraging and comforting to know that we were
not the only ones who messed up tonight. I know it is an evil
thought. But it is kinda nice to know that someone else is feeling our
pains too.
God is truly humorous. Even in the mist of our failure, He has given us a reason to laugh.
Jesus was right in saying, "You should be like this little child." A
child can easily laugh at his or her silliness and failure and just move
on. I should be like them too.
I will always remeber Sam's hilarious "Limbo", and how that little word brightened my not so great night.
Thank you Samuel!
