PARKER'S EPIPHANY

Over the last two and a half years my family has been trying to live out a missional calling to the neighborhood where we live.

One of the main ways we've accomplished this has been through the children who live on our cul-de-sac in Orange and play with our boys every week.

A few weeks ago at the Mission we were joined on a Thursday evening by five of the children from our neighborhood. They knocked on our door as we were finishing up dinner and preparing to enter worship to announce that they were coming to church with us.

They sang along with us, took communion with us and engaged in our open share time dialog along with everyone else.

The day we moved into this house it was Parker, a street smart kid who is used to taking care of himself and his two younger siblings for much of the time, who first welcomed us to the neighborhood, and himself to our house.

Parker, who is only about 7 or 8 years old, is head strong, funny and smart as a whip. He's got the mind of a 19 year old in the body of a young boy so you never know what he might do or say.

This night, as we were answering the rapid fire questions being thrown at us from the kids, Parker suddenly had a revelation and shouted, "Hey, wait a minute!"

We all paused to hear what he might be preparing to say next. "If Adam and Eve were the only people in the beginning and then they had kids and their kids had kids, then that means the whole planet is one big family."

The adults in the room all smiled and nodded to one another. We were visibly impressed by Parker's revelation.

"You're right," I said to Parker. "If only the leaders of our Nations and the people of our planet could all remember that, our World would be a much better place wouldn't it?"

Parker agreed.

-kg