I was given Monday and Wednesday to present to three age groups – ranging from 4 years old to fifth grade. How hard can that be? Heck, I’ve been involved with VBS since my 23 year old daughter was a little kid. No problem! Easy-peasy!
Today, the first day of VBS, I centered the conversation on the work our Senior PF did on our Chicago Mission trip. In my preparations, I kept returning to the issue of homelessness (you might have read about that in last month’s Steeple). Unfortunately, as VBS drew closer I ran out of prep time. Which led me to the unfortunate position of figuring it out on the gorgeous summer Sunday afternoon before VBS was to begin!
As the minutes ticked away I began to feel a creeping panic… exactly how do I talk to a four year old from Monroe about what it’s like to be a person experiencing homelessness? Will they get it? What is age appropriate? How do I frame the conversation without terrifying the child? And, how might the conversation shift when I would focus on older VBS participants?
For starters, kids of all ages need to know the appropriate terms. The younger ones couldn’t tell me what a mission was, but the older ones knew it had something to do with “helping people”. Then, we focused on a tent that I had set up as I told them about the tent cities of people experiencing homelessness in Chicago, and how our PF went to visit them and bring some bag lunches we had made. Not too many of the children had ever been camping, so we imagined what it might be like to live in a tent instead of a house. Where would we store food or take a shower?
Then, we talked about what they can do as a kid to help people. We brainstormed what we might put in a “blessing bag” to give to someone who needs help (with our parent’s supervision, of course). In the older group, we watched a short video of an 18 year old homeless man living in tent city and some of his struggles. And we talked about the importance of treating other human beings with dignity and respect.
What I didn’t share was Chicago’s statistics:
• Average age of a person experiencing homelessness is 9!
• There are over 80,000 people in need of permanent affordable housing
• On any given night, 2,000 youth look for a place to lay their head, but there are only 360 shelter beds to accommodate them.
• Today across our nation there are more Vietnam vets experiencing homelessness than were American casualties from that war, 1,000 of them live in Chicago
I told myself “they wouldn’t understand”, and maybe that’s true. To be honest, there is a part of me that knows I didn’t share the numbers because they make me angry. I’d rather be hopeful. Or maybe it’s because the numbers always remind me that we have such work ahead of us to really love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
OK, so Wednesday? That’s the day I share my sabbatical work, monitoring human rights violations in Jerusalem… with 4-11 year olds. Pray for me?
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