That was my first mistake. Underestimating how difficult it would be. Well, actually let me correct that a little bit. I was mislead a bit — not with deception, I believe, but probably just with . . . . desperation? — by a few ladies at church by how “easy” it would be to teach Junior Church, which is where the kids go after they have the Children’s Message in the sanctuary during the contemporary service in my church.
Today was my Sunday, my first Sunday at that. The coordinator of Junior Church, Mi., didn’t have my home address and had forgotten to get it. Her schedule is hectic, etc. etc. etc., and she didn’t have the chance to send me the information ahead of time. To be completely honest, I had lost the list of who teaches Junior Church when so I was in the dark about when my Junior Church stint was. She called on Wednesday to give me a heads-up that today was my day, asking if I was still able to do it, and wanting to go over what I’d need to do. She was also very apologetic about not getting the information to me sooner. When I called her back, we talked, and it didn’t sound like a big deal. She would leave all of the information out in the room where Junior Church is held. It basically includes a story, a video, and a craft. Sounds easy, right? Yeaaaahhhh, riiiigghhhttt.
OK, so this being a holiday weekend, there weren’t many people at church and not many kids there at the Children’s Message. I counted ten. Right after the Children’s Message, I got up to take them downstairs to the room where Junior Church is. I lost a few on the way, but I assumed they’d gone back to their parents in the sanctuary. When we got to the room, Nate and his sometimes-friend/always-fellow-trouble-maker, C., immediately hid behind the couch, giggling and doing who knew what. Nate yelled, “we’re hiding behind the couch, Mom!” “OK, Nate. You and C. need to come out from behind the couch.”
I got the kids to a table and asked one slightly older boy what his name is. “B.,” he said. “Hi, B. I’m Judy. Or Miss Judy.” I had no idea how they go by names here. I had asked Nate before and he said they often use Miss and the first name, but really, I had no idea. So I was winging it. I turned around to get another name — there was only one other child I didn’t know, a beautiful very little girl with long red hair — and B. was gone. “Where’s B.?,” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else. Nate jumped up, went out to the hallway and yelled, “B! Get back here!” Oh my. I hoped that noise didn’t travel all the way up to the sanctuary. “Nate, never mind. He’s probably gone back up with his grandparents.” B., after all, is Mi.’s son (the coordinator of Junior Church). She and her husband went to the early church service because they had some golf outing with friends. I had been very confident when I had talked with her — “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll wing it. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Yep. Very confident, very relaxed.
Well, about the time B. left, which was about 5 minutes into Junior Church, I started losing control. The remaining six children weren’t paying attention and I could tell that they were incredibly antsy. They had said that they usually run around for a few minutes when they first get down there. Truth? Bald-faced lie? I had no idea, but the remaining 6 children were from 3-5 years old so I thought that I couldn’t expect them to sit like little adults during the entire time. So I told them to go ahead and play for a few minutes while I looked over the materials that Mi. had left for me. Good idea, huh? Let the little darlings work off a bit of energy so then they would be ready to get down to business and learn about the Lord, right?
W.R.O.N.G.
It was at that point that I. Lost. Complete. Control.
Nate and C. started banging on the bongo drums that are in that room. This is the room that is typically used for young adults, so I can see why they have bongo drums in the room, but for the sake of bad acoustical design everywhere, why oh why can’t they REMOVE. THE. BLESSED. BONGO. DRUMS. BEFORE. JUNIOR. CHURCH?? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??????
The other kids drummed the bongo drums too. There’s also a blow-up pink flamingo (I. have. no. idea.) and Nate and C. and another boy, Mat., were fighting over the pink flamingo. I don’t mean just word fighting, I mean on the floor, wrestling, holding-onto-the-neck-of-the-pink- flamingo-like-it-was-a-death-match fighting. Needless to say, I took the pink flamingo away from all of them and set it up where I thought they couldn’t reach it. Later I saw C. try to get it and I gave him The Look Of Death and a stern “NO! You Are Not Allowed To Play With The Flamingo!” and he backed away slowly.
Realizing that we were WAAAYYYY off course, I finally got the LITTLE. DARLINGS. back to their seats at the table. I looked over the materials and the directions said that we were supposed to start with one of the older kids reading the definition of slavery from a Veggie Tales Dictionary. Older kid? WHAT older kid? There were no older kids there! And really, were those 3-5 year olds going to be interested in the definition of slavery? I thought not. So I skipped that.
Then I was supposed to read some very long story from The Veggie Tales’ church material. Well, I had already lost the attention of the kids, they were sitting in their seats like it was some kind of punishment, and quite a bit of time had already been wasted. So I skipped that also. The lesson was supposed to be about problems and turning to God when you have problems. Part of it was talking with the kids about their problems, asking them about problems that they have. I thought to myself, “Well, that’s a good idea. They might like to talk about some of their problems.” Right? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggghhhhhhtttt.
I said, “Today we’re going to talk about turning to God when we have problems, like Mrs. L. was talking about during the Children’s Message upstairs. Can you tell me any problems you might have?”
Nate pipes up:
I have problems! I have problems with YOU! I have problems with YOU and Dad!
Oh. My. Not quite what I was going for.
“Well, Nate, let’s not go into those right now. What about you, A.? You wanted to say something?”
A. is an adorable little 4-year-old girl who speaks softly, and she says, “I have a problem. I have problems with my animals. They screw around on my bed at nighttime when I’m trying to sleep.”
A., of course, is talking about her stuffed animals. Again, not quite what I had in mind. I was trying not to squeeze the temples of my eyes between my fingers at that point like I was in a great deal of psychic pain . . . which I was.
Nate wanted to talk again:
I have problems with Dad hitting and kicking Callie. I have problems with that!
Oh. Dear. This wasn’t getting any better. I started wondering if I yelled “Ice cream truck!” and pointed at the parking lot if I could make a quick getaway without them being able to catch me running out the hallway, up the stairs, and out of the building. Then again, there’s the question of Nate. I had to somehow be able to grab his arm and get him away with me while I rushed out of the building. Maybe if I used the other door downstairs. Oh heck, this isn’t going to work . . .
Instead, I smiled that gritted-teeth smile and turned to the other children and said, “Callie is our dog (because I know that Callie can be a person’s name), and his dad really doesn’t do that anymore although he used to once in a great while.” I was absolutely mortified, wondering if I could crawl under the table just like C. had done earlier. Nate had made his father sound like a huge animal abuser. I could just hear the kids relaying this information to their parents. Or maybe they’d just say, “Nate’s dad hits and kicks Callie,” without saying who or what Callie is. Greeeaaaatttt. It’s not a good thing that he used to do that to a dog very occasionally, granted, but it certainly would have been worse to do it to a person, and with just that name, who could tell?
So by then, I had not only lost control, I figured I was really somewhere in the negative points as far as any kind of “grade” for Junior Church. But there was still some time left, so we moved onto the boy Mat. who said that he had a problem and his problem was that he kicks his car. Ooookkkay, so that was where we were with things then. His sister, Ma., said that her problem was that she hit and kicked her house.
There was a craft that we were supposed to do and in order to somewhat save myself I got that out and started to distribute the items needed to do the craft. By the time I did so, parents started coming into the room. “Church is over?,” I said, and then looked at my watch. “Yep, church IS over!” I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun. Or when you’re bombing as a Junior Church teacher.
*sigh* Kids. They’re like dogs — you know how dogs can smell fear? Kids can smell inexperience. From a mile away.
After all, it was Junior Church and I think I mentioned God once. ONCE. Oops.
