Ever in a situation where you wished you could take a picture, but it just wouldn’t work? I’ve been that way a few times recently.
A couple of Sundays ago I had nursery duty at church, and we had a full house. Eight children two and under. Fortunately, a mother took pity on me and stayed to help out. It all went very well.
Toward the end of our time, two babies got a bit fussy. They had been so good to just sit and watch that I decided I could hold both of them. One was Emmanuel, a two-month-old African American baby; the other was She’ar, another African American baby about eight months old. They were similar in size and both were wearing light blue—adorable against their dark skin.
As I rocked and they settled down, little She’ar reached over and took Emmanuel’s hand. So precious! I really wanted a picture, but the mother who was helping me was nursing and couldn’t get up to take it. Before their parents arrived, other children came in and the spell was broken. But I’ll remember that for a long time.
The second was granddaughter Landry, “two and a half,” she tells me. She is doing well on her potty training, so when we were keeping her one evening, she kept wanting to go to the potty. I got tired of taking panties on and off, so I just let her go bare under her little denim jumper. Every time she leaned over to pick up a toy from the floor, that sweet little bottom peeped out and was so cute. I’ll recall that scene for a long time, too.
The third was last Sunday when three of our Chinese friends went with us to church. Jinyan and Yihui, our readers, are returning to China Thursday, and they wanted to visit our church before they left. Their friend Xue came, too. In the car, when Jinyan introduced Xue, she pronounced it “Shoo-air.” Steve asked her to repeat it, which she did, saying, “Shoo-air! X-U-E—Shoo-air.” I thought that was hilarious because I still haven’t figured out Chinese pronunciation the way it’s spelled in English, nor has Steve. I noticed at church that Xue just introduced herself as Cheryl. Much easier and very similar.
They went with us to Sunday class and as we entered they met Landon, a precocious first-grader. He is in a Spanish immersion class and had many questions for them about how to say things in Chinese. The three seemed to enjoy both class and sermon and asked good questions afterward. Jinyan, Steve’s reader, said she cried during the sermon because she was so sad to be leaving him.
They also went with us to Life Group. They loved the lasagna and garlic bread, especially. They had never had either, and all took second helpings. It just happened that our hosts that day have a daughter they adopted from China, so it was fun for them to talk to Evie and for her to ask them questions. They listened intently to our discussion of the sermon on God being in both the mountains and the valleys. Some of us shared valley experiences that we had learned from. We took pictures as we left.
We dropped them off at their apartment building, getting out to hug and say our good-byes to Jinyan and Yihui. Then Steve turned the car around. and as we left, they were still standing under the green awning, smiling and waving good-bye. Also precious! It happened too quickly to take a picture, but the picture will stay in my mind, along with the others.
What pictures do you keep in mind if not anywhere else?
Xue, Lanita, Steve, Jinyan, Yihui
