So, tonight was the National Night out Neighborhood Block party all over St. Louis. In my neighborhood, we are a mixed crowd...some young, some old, different ethnicities and always lots of great food from my favorite burnt hot dogs to a neighbors culinary experiment of salted carmel cupcakes...yum! Sitting down next to some strangers and introducing myself, I saw they had several kids. I asked them what advice they would have about having kids. One woman said that she moved from the county to the city because it was racist there and her child was a mixed ethnicity. Her advice on kids was "Don't have em!"
The other woman I was sitting by had 6 kids all laughing and seeming to enjoy each others presence as they ate. She had some advice I thought was very practical but could change the world. "Spend as much time with them as you can. It needs to be you teaching them. If you don't spend time with them, someone else will teach them all kinds of things." True that! She went on to say that it was hard and good, but one day, they would be gone. Priceless.
Excusing myself to tend my overgrown cherry tomato garden (that has been neglected for one month), an older gentleman walks up to ask about the garden, saying, "That is good..growing your own food!" I learned that this man was from Kenya and had been in the US 10 years after waiting for 2 years to get his green card. He stayed in the assisted living building in the neighborhood and was walking back from the store after getting his wife some medicine and saw the block party. He went on to talk about how he sends much of the money he makes back to his family in Africa and about how the African society is a sharing society. He said the US is more individualistic and he thought the key was to LOVE others and so many are just in their own little worlds and do not do that. I asked him if he was a believer and he said that he loved Jesus and that it wasn't about church or anything, but about showing Jesus' love through really loving others...and that this society needed to do that.
Wisdom in the garden. Who would've thought?
Proverbs 22:6- Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
1 John 4:7- Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
The other woman I was sitting by had 6 kids all laughing and seeming to enjoy each others presence as they ate. She had some advice I thought was very practical but could change the world. "Spend as much time with them as you can. It needs to be you teaching them. If you don't spend time with them, someone else will teach them all kinds of things." True that! She went on to say that it was hard and good, but one day, they would be gone. Priceless.
Excusing myself to tend my overgrown cherry tomato garden (that has been neglected for one month), an older gentleman walks up to ask about the garden, saying, "That is good..growing your own food!" I learned that this man was from Kenya and had been in the US 10 years after waiting for 2 years to get his green card. He stayed in the assisted living building in the neighborhood and was walking back from the store after getting his wife some medicine and saw the block party. He went on to talk about how he sends much of the money he makes back to his family in Africa and about how the African society is a sharing society. He said the US is more individualistic and he thought the key was to LOVE others and so many are just in their own little worlds and do not do that. I asked him if he was a believer and he said that he loved Jesus and that it wasn't about church or anything, but about showing Jesus' love through really loving others...and that this society needed to do that.
Wisdom in the garden. Who would've thought?
Proverbs 22:6- Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
1 John 4:7- Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Burnt dogs and caramel cupcakes yum. Don't have kids made me sad. Wise Kenyan thou
ReplyDeleteBurnt dogs and caramel cupcakes yum. Don't have kids made me sad. Wise Kenyan thou
ReplyDelete