United Pentecostal Church Mannheim
Short Messages
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Message from the Monthly Flyer from May 2005

An experience while visiting our Sunday School children
Billy and his brother

One Saturday morning, I was on my way as usual in my area in the poor section by the river in Oklahoma City, which we called “Sandtown”, visiting the children who belonged to our Sunday School. I drove past a large old mobile home whose owners had recently moved in. Playing in the grass in front of it were 2 small boys. They approached me with big eyes full of curiosity.

Their faces were dirty and their hair was untidy. The one boy who was about 5 years old was called Billy, and the other one was his younger brother and was about 4 years old. Instantly I fell in love with them. I talked with the parents and the children, and at the end of the conversation the two children were given permission to attend our Sunday School every Sunday. I was glad that the Lord had blessed us again, and now I was able to pick them up with our church bus.

On average, we had approximately 35 children in this bus. There were times when our three busses which we had, transported over 130 children to Sunday School and several adults too.

Billy, the elder brother, always held the hand of his younger brother and looked after him. Both of them were well brought up and behaved themselves, setting a good example of being “grown up boys”. Punctually every Sunday morning at 9.30 AM, they waited, all dressed up, in front of their mobile home for my green painted church bus to arrive and then they would climb aboard full of great joy – no wonder, for they were going to Sunday School, and that was really exciting.

Their mother once told me that every time when her two boys came home, they would talk about every single thing which they had learnt about Jesus in Sunday School. I visited them every week on Saturdays and wanted to see how they were doing. One Saturday, their mother told me that her two children would not be coming this Sunday, for they were all going fishing and would be taking the children with them.

Good, I understood that - I said goodbye to her and the 2 boys and wished them success whilst fishing and that they would enjoy themselves. A week later, on a Saturday morning, I visited them again and asked whether the children would be coming on the following day. Then the mother came out of the house and gave me the reply, “Yes, they will be coming.” I asked the mother, “And how was the picnic last week and how did the fishing go?” She took a deep breath, and smiling at the same time she sighed, “The whole fishing trip last Sunday was a complete let-down. It would have been better if they had gone to Sunday School and we had stayed at home.” I asked, “Why’s that?” She replied,” The whole day, the children kept asking, When can we at long last go to Sunday School? When are we going to stop fishing? Can we go home now? The whole time they just didn’t stop going on.”

The two little ones got on the parents’ nerves so much, that they were glad when they were back home again on Sunday evening. Unfortunately, there were no fish as had been planned. Later on the mother was also on the bus going to the worship services. rw

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