I opened the door and from the room came a glow. “Oh great” I thought “He is at it again!” inside the room was my eleven year old son with earphones on so that I could not hear the noise coming out of the television as he was busy playing his Xbox 360 game. He had added a sheet to the curtains to make his room darker than normal. I suddenly felt like I was the mother of Greg from the book series Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Dog Days.
Last year I wanted to get my 10 year old son reading, something he appeared not to enjoy too much and after reading a review of the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid I purchase two books in the series for my son’s Christmas presents. He was not so impressed upon opening the present and discovering the books or the fact that I made him take them with us in the car to see his grandparents in the country. Sitting in the car I could fell my son’s anger as he sat behind me, so I decided that I should check out what the books were really like; within two minutes I was laughing and reading bits of the book out loud to my husband as he drove. My son then asked for a look at what I was talking about, so I handed him the book with the page open. Three days later he had read both books.
The book series ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ is quick and easy to read. There are little cartoon pictures to add extra laughs. I would recommend these books to any child (my nine year old daughter enjoys them also). There is only one word to describe reading any of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and that is FUN. Jeff Kinney has written a great series and I personally as well as my children cant wait for the next book in the series
As a child heroes were often people of the bible who did extraordinary things in extraordinary times. Today if you asked someone to name their hero you would often get a sporting hero but here in Australia many a sporting hero has fallen due to bad behavior, sparking much anger from parents and media. So who really is our Hero’s of today?
Last Friday night my husband was a hero. He did not do anything brave, he did not save anyone’s life, but last Friday night my husband was a hero for my kids when they went to their schools annual Hero’s night. Now my husband may not deserve the title of Hero in some people’s eyes, but my kids are my defiantly proud of him and believe that he is well worthy of the title. Can our children’s dad be heroes? Who do we really want our children to look up to? My children’s school thinks that the dad’s are important. Hero’s night at my kid’s school is a time where the kids get to show their dads who may not spend that much time around their kid’s schools what they are doing and have a fun evening together. To a lot of the kids my children’s age their dads are their heroes.
I got the six kids to lie down in the big tent, they thought that they could probably manage sleeping here, they were already aware that there would not be any electricity where the people who were really living in a make shift tent home in a refugee camp. Then the guide came in and told us that this tent would be the home of a family of twenty people. Now even with the six kids in my group the vision of twenty people sleeping in that one small area was astounding, outside the tent there were shoes made out of tires, toys made out of cans, the kids were able to hold and look at what the refugee’s made, when their attention was caught by the next display.
“Can you lift this 20 liter container?” well my son thought he could, the guide pointed to a landmark in the distance and inform the kids that people would walk that far with the container of water. My son informed her that he could walk to the fence and back carrying the container, and followed through with his statement; a girl in our group tried but did not make the distance. The kids listened to the guide as she explained how much water we use in Adelaide compared to the twenty liters the refugees got in a day. The reality that most people would not be able to wash often hit home, so the guide took us to see the toilets. The kids placed their feet on the indicated markings of the long drop toilet and imagined what it would be like to go to the toilet; she started to talk about the hygiene and the importance of washing your hands, when the kids realized that you don’t have toilet paper, well this raised a few questions and a scream of horror from the girls in our group when they were told that if someone was in hurry and did not remove the cover of the toilet it was not washed, it just stayed there.
At the medical side of the display, one showed us how they tested for malaria, and what other diseases was a danger to people in refugee camps, another showed how medicines were transported to the places that they were needed, and the different type of boxes they used to transport the medicine. We were informed of how many immunizations they gave in a four month period, the number was astounding. We visited the cholera tent and were shown the beds with the hole for diarrhea, the guide went to show us another toilet when another guide lay down on a stretcher pretending to have cholera; let me just say this I would be very surprised if any of my group of kids became doctors or nurses.
All in all it was an interesting experience – my son comment was great and funny – there was a lot of toilet humor, but what can you expect from a group of eleven year olds. Please watch the clip below to find out what I experienced with my group of six kids for a school excursion.
No matter how far I come on my faith journey, I often find that I have to come back to simple faith, and only when I come back to the simple faith of letting go of my ego and letting God work through me that I truly move.
Feel free to visit my website http://www.startwithsimplefaith.com
My personal Scripture: Psalm 150
