Teaching Over the Fence

Lately, I've been wondering why God hasn't seen fit to bless our plans to enclose the back patio. My next door neighbor was over for coffee several weeks ago and told me, "I hear you teaching the kids outside sometimes. The first time I heard it, I thought how great it would have been to have had a neighbor like you when I was a little girl." Wow, what a compliment! See, God, even the neighbor recognizes what a worthy cause this little Sunday school class is. We sure could use an air conditioned space before the hot Florida summer arrives.

Then this past weekend we took our kids to their friend's birthday party one street over. I was talking to a couple of women who live caddy corner behind our house and one of them said she has been searching for an affirming church. When I told her we have a house church and they are welcome to come check it out, her partner said, "Ya, I hear you teaching the kids in your back yard." Then it hit me. Of course you do because the class where I teach the kids about Jesus is outside where everybody can hear it.

The kids have been learning through vegetable gardening that rain helps the plants grow before returning to the sky to form clouds. Isaiah 55:11 says, "It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it." (New Living Translation) Each Sunday morning I'm aware of at least two other neighbors doing yard work in their back yards who can evidently hear us too. So I'll just keep on teaching out in the open and hope that God will soon bring these people into our living room.