Oh, No, Honey. Not THOSE Toys

We didn’t have Sunday School for kids last Sunday morning because the bikers were coming. Every year at church, we collect new toys for the Mission Waco Toy Store. Several churches participate, and on Thanksgiving weekend, local bikers (some are members of “Riders of the Son”) ride from church to church and pick up the toys. (They bring a trailer, too, for the toys, which is efficient, but keeps drivers around Waco from being able to see bikers guys and gals roaring around with Barbie dolls and Lego sets tucked under their arms.)

This year, an adult Sunday School class sponsored a time for parents and kids during the Sunday School hour to talk about Advent and giving and about the bikers’ ministry, and then the bikers came. They thundered into the parking lot and the kids got to meet the bikers and get close to those motorcycles (which are turned off at the time), and even sit on a bike. Then the bikers packed up all the toys we had donated, and blasted off to the next church.

One mom stopped me at church Wednesday night to say that she had carefully explained to her three-year-old about the bikers and the toys. “They’re coming to our church to get the toys,” she said. “Then they take the toys so that parents who don’t have much money can get toys for their kids.”

Her son had somehow missed the part where church people had purchased toys and donated those toys for the bikers to take away. He thought they were coming to get the toys that were already at church. The toys in his Sunday School room. Maybe even . . . the Marble Run.

“No,” he wept. “Don’t let them take our toys. Don’t let them take our Marble Run. Not the Marble Run!”

Last September, a kid brought the marble run over from the room next to ours, which isn’t being used right now. Children put the pieces together to create a sort of roller coaster for marbles. All sorts of parts send marbles sliding down ramps, swirling in circles, and even doing loops. It is marvelous, wonderful fun.

From my perspective, a marble run may be the single greatest resource for teaching little kids how to work together, cooperate, and take turns. And, as the weeks go by, they (usually, often, occasionally, sometimes) need less and less guidance from the adults in the room.

Sometimes there is pouting. Sometimes there is sulking. Sometimes there is yelling. Sometimes there are dirty looks.

But more often, there is working together to figure out how to make the marbles go through the run. There is taking turns, with kids waiting, well, relatively patiently to send their marble through the run. There is appreciation for each other as they cooperate to make exciting, thrilling, extraordinary pathways for marbles to careen down.

And, they’re learning a little physics, too.

And they’re learning it all at church.

It’s a win-win.

We returned to building, focused and determined to work as one people. We stacked rock upon rock until one end of the wall met the other and it grew to half of its original height.

Nothing’s quite a focused as a bunch of preschoolers who are determined to figure out how to get their marbles from the top to the bottom in the most exciting way. It’s hard to believe that adult Sunday School is as interesting.

Here are links to some things you might want to know more about:

Mission Waco Toy Store
Riders of the Son
One Example of a Marble Run