Every so often, we’ll get a call at our office from a church looking for childcare workers for a special service or conference.  Our leaders and volunteers take turns filling these requests and, instead of them getting paid, we ask the church to make one donation directly to Starlite.  The extra funds help us take care of all of those surprising costs that come up long after we’ve made that semester’s budget.

We sent a team out to a church last night and at the last minute realized that we were going to be one person short.  Several of our girls were out of town, some were still sick and then another group were hosting a high school girl’s sleepover at our office.  So, not wanting to break our promise that we’d have x-number of girls at the church that night, I headed over to help out.

Listen, we gotta have a way to buy all that processed nacho cheese.  And it isn’t as cheap as you think it is, interlings.

We had a whole lot of kiddies there so we decided to split them up.  I asked if there were any ones that would like to go to the tables to color with me.  They went racing over, but one little boy (who was five and there with his twin sister) came right up to me and motioned for me to lean down. 

“Miss Amy Beth?  I want to color.  God has given me one true talent and gift in life and it is coloring so I am ready!”

I promise he said it just like that — the whole “one true talent” and everything.  Cassidy (one of our volunteers) and I laughed until we were almost crying.  The little boy didn’t see anything funny about his statement and scampered off to color.

I headed over to the table, found a regular-sized chair and began to color.  Three little girls across from me kept saying “I like your earrings” and “I really like your shirt, Miss Amy Beth.”  I hadn’t had time to change from being in the office so I was a bit overdressed for coloring and animal crackers.  The last little girl said “I like her skirt!” and I looked down to see what skirt I was wearing.  Needless to say, it had been a long day.

To my surprise, I found a boy who must have been about nine laying underneath my chair gazing up at me.  Or, really, up my skirt. 

“WHAT are you doing?” 

“Umm… nothing.  But I like your skirt, too.”

And with that, he scampered off to play wrestling action figures with his friends.

The things we do for processed nacho cheese.  The things we do, indeed.