Sue* took her mentee, Joan*, out east to visit a small museum. Apparently, the museum was horrible. It was dimly lit, not terribly clean, and had a lot of exhibits of stuffed cats. Sue felt terrible.
However, she decided to make the best of it and had a contest with Joan to see who could find the worst exhibit.
When I spoke to them about this experience, Joan shouted with pride, “and I won! The exhibit I picked was so bad…” and she rambled on for 10 minutes about how they couldn’t stop laughing.
Joan told me it was the most memorable day of her life.
A disaster turned into an unforgettable memory with a little creativity.
God can use apparent failures and disasters as teachable moments and awesome memories.
Do your homework, there is no excuse for not planning, but then commit your outing to the Lord and trust Him to work in your time together. Pray!
Be flexible – I don’t think Mary and Joseph’s original plan was to have a manager for Jesus’ first bed, but we still cherish the memory over 2000 years later.
It is OK to let your mentee know that you are not perfect. These children have usually experienced a lot of failures and disasters in their lives. How you react to them can be a powerful teaching moment. We all have emotions – frustration, anger, disappointment, etc., but what we do with them is critical to our witness to these children.
Article by: George Bundt
