Fifth grade Sunday School students are fun. They are right on the edge of diving into young adulthood. They are good readers. They ask tough questions. Best of all, they still like we “old” people. This is my third year for teaching Sunday School to 5th graders at our church and is Sher’s eleventh year. We have two classes, and I teach one of them, Sher the other. Both classes use the same material, and share teaching ideas. Well, mostly I use Sher’s ideas. She is a gifted teacher.

Our students are given Bible memory verses to learn each week. It is a competition with a prize at the end, and this fall two girls memorized all of them! Both girls love horses, and Sher asked if we could give them a morning with the horses. That would be my part. She would provide homemade pizza for lunch afterwards.

Last Saturday was the prize day. Arriving at 10 a.m. to a bleak-looking farm (winter is not the time for a pretty farm) and extra-fuzzy horses, the girls were well dressed for the cold morning and biting wind. At least for an hour!

I was having such fun, I scarcely heard the girls say they were getting cold. Not until I heard my husband’s loud voice boom out, “WE ARE COLD!!!” did I notice red cheeks, and even redder noses on all of them!

There is little that is more cozy than being bareback on a warm, fuzzy horse—-unless one is going into a warm house for homemade pizza and hot tea!

The truth is, I believe I am the one that has won the prize. For these students have taught me far more than I ever have them. It is a gift with a prize.

Cast your bread upon the waters. Eccl. 11:1

Congratulations, girls!