Olivia's burden for her friend....

First of all...my lack of posts over the last few months is not due to lack of material, just lack of time. We just moved from our house in Abbotsford, BC to my parents' house in Goderich, ON for the summer until Shawn is able to find employment somewhere here in Ontario. So, in the midst of all that going on, there hasn't been a lot of time to record all the little things here that would normally qualify as 'noteworthy'.

Now that we are a bit settled, I am trying to make time for these important entries again. Olivia said goodbye to a number of her little grade 1 friends in BC and during her last few weeks at school really developed a passion to prove to her classmates that God is real. She informed me that one day at lunch time, she polled her class to find out who believed in God and who didn't. Apparently there were a few who said they didn't and one of them was one of her friends. So...since that day, Olivia has been on a mission to help this little girl come to believe that God is real. We have prayed for her on many occasions at bedtime and Olivia has had many of her own little 'conversations' with this friend.
Well, the other day, she was in her 'artistic zone' and was making a picture or a booklet or something. I turned to her and said, "Olivia, if you ever want to send your friends in BC a picture or card or something, just let mommy know and I'll put it in the mail for you." Her response was, "That's what I'm doing Mom! I have to prove to _____ that God is real. Otherwise, she will be stuck here when the new earth comes and then she will have to go to Saul." A little confused, but pretty sure I knew what she meant, I said, "Saul??" Olivia says, "Yeah, or whatever that other evil heaven is called." Then I said, "Oh, you mean hell." "Yeah, that's it," she replied.

While we were travelling from BC to Ontario, we had stopped at this waterfront area for a break and the kids were playing around. We kept seeing all these wasps around, but what we didn't realize was that Braden was hitting a wasp nest with his sandal, trying to kill them all. Knowing the nature of wasps, we were completely amazed that they didn't attack Braden and that he never got stung. So, we thanked God for protecting Him, fully believing that to be the reason he never got stung. Olivia must have been impacted by that.

So, now 2 weeks later, she goes on to write this note to her friend that read something like this,
"God saved my bruther's life. Naw that is power from God. Braden was poking at wasps and God saved him."

It's always interesting to me to see how our kids process the information they receive and try to put it all together in life. I'm thankful that our kids have a burden for their friends who don't believe in God, but we are now in the process of helping them to understand how to deal with that in a way that is still loving and respectful, yet still full of faith and truth.