"Sumoot waa" she says, loudly. Repeatedly. A seven year old talking to her friends. I think I heard her say it about 5 times within less than 10 minutes of their after school play.
It means "suppose" or "assume" or coming out of a 1st grader's mouth it means Imagine.
Imagine this. Pretend that. She directed her friends on what they should imagine in their minds to make their play more fun. Thinking outside of the box.
It's funny though - especially when imagining happens in a language I don't fully know. I try to figure out what they are pretending as 3 of the first grade girls tie 1 scarf around their waist and shuffle their little black shoes across the uneven asphalt, tripping softly into each other and giggling. Still, she directs. She goes to the dirt and draws a line and says again "Sumoot waa." I laugh because I really don't have any idea where their imagining is taking them.
But I don't have to know. I take comfort in knowing that they are pretending.
We were talking with one of our Board members - Brad - last week when he was here for a work trip that brought him to our neck of the woods. We discussed the upcoming fundraiser they are doing for Hope International Schools {Asian Fusion - next week, December 1st at Community Church of the Rockies in CO Spgs at 7:00 - auctioning off things from Thailand and will be Skyping with us here. You should go. Really. It'll be awesome}. We decided it would be cool to include the kids in on the Skype since it'll be class time here when the auction is taking place.
"Why didn't we do that last year?" We were all thinking it. Then quickly the lump caught in our throats.
Oh yeah, we didn't have students this time last year.
This school was student-less.
We imagined too at that time. We pretended to be curriculum writers. Pretended to be painters, builders, landscapers, etc. Imagined what it would be like to have students.
But it was different. We knew what the goal was but there were times we would ask God "is this really what You want?" "Why is everything seem like it's going wrong?"
A place for pretending, for dreaming and imagining. A safe place where children are encouraged to be themselves. To ask questions. To investigate who this God is that we tell them about. This God who loves them so much that He knows every hair on their head. The God that formed them in their mother's womb. The God that desires to show Himself to them. This is a place where they can discover themselves. A place for them to be encouraged.
A place for them to not only imagine but to discover :
1 comment:
Nice.........
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