Thank you for your message
The last several weeks have been quite busy with the Walk To Emmaus. The Men’s WTE in Hong Kong was from May 11 – 14 and I was on the "conference team." I.e. assisting the Leaders with guiding and debriefing the various talks. The WTE was held at Maryknoll in Stanley, Hong Kong. The Women’s WTE was held the weekend after the men’s from May 18 – 21. Tess was a participant. Tess shared a little about that on her blog. I was mostly looking after The Kids, while dropping by every so often to provide behind-the-scenes support to the women’s WTE.
My WTE was very good for me, and essentially was all about my obedience to God. There were many fathers on the WTE and during the weekend the discussions naturally turned to parenting. An inquiry commenced where we asked questions such as, "Who do our children see when they look at us? Do they see a cynical, busy person rushing around answering e-mails on the Blackberry? OR, do they see a calm, patient teacher… leader… or even Jesus?"
Similarly, who do we see when we look at our children? Do we see a naughty, cranky kid… OR do we see God’s grace… innocence, love… or even Jesus?
The Monday morning after the men’s WTE Sebastian came into our room as usual to wake me up…
Seb crawled into bed and after snuggling under the covers reached over to pick up my small travel Bible from my bedside table. As he flipped through the pages I asked him, "Would you like me to read a story from the Bible?"
"No thank you," he replied, "I will read it."
He flipped through the pages and at one point his finger traced down a page. As he did, he recited the letters and numbers that he recognised…
"B… S… 2… 1…" he read confidently. Then he muttered about reading more and thumbed a few pages while saying matter-of-factly:
"My Daddy’s Bible doesn’t have pictures. We have to read the words to see Jesus."
Turning more pages he finally settled on a page on the left, pointed to the middle of a verse and said in a very soft but clear-as-a-bell tone:
"Dear People, Jesus and God love you."
Sebastian then moved his finger over to the right hand page, found a verse and said in an equally soft voice:
"Dear Jesus, thank you for your message."
An incredibly sweet, timeless moment and better than anything I could have read that morning from The Bible. The moment also confirmed for me that Sebastian actually listens in Sunday school.
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
1 John 3:11 (NIV)
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