Train Up a Child

We just completed our VBS for this year. My part was to just grab candid photos throughout the week and then to help teach a craft class on the last night. As I wandered from group to group, there was something that jumped out at me over and over. Our teenage girls and boys were all there helping. In one instance the teacher had to leave because her little one had taken all he could and was quickly approaching melt down mode. All of us mothers have been there! This mother was wise enough to know that her toddler had reached his limit. Well the teenager, who was assisting her, stepped in and took over. In another instance, several of our young teenage girls stepped in and partnered with some of the toddlers who were, shall we say, rambunctious, and pulled them into their laps, or held their little hands and or in many cases carried them on their hips. This happened every night! That’s when it hit me. Proverbs 22:6 was playing out before my eyes. “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

I knew these young adults were raised in the church and when given the opportunity, they stepped up. Their training did not depart from them. In actuality, the were becoming the trainers. I always thought of this verse as just being for parents, but it’s not. It’s for all of us. The parents of these young adults have done their job and now their children are using what they were taught to guide the youngest. There is an old Native American or African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” What a village we have! Moms and dads, grandparents, Sunday school teachers, deacons, aunts and uncles, husbands and wives, and teenagers, musicians, pastor, all coming together to make a week-long adventure possible. We have the best village ever and they have been trained in the way they should go. And, they are already passing it along by helping to train up the next ones.