Another Proud Parent Moment

Yesterday evening we went off to church like normal, now from previous emails you might know already that in the beginning of the Mass, Father calls all the kids to the front and then they leave from there with a teacher which keeps them occupied for some of the Mass before they all join the congregation again. Well usually in the last five minutes before the Mass starts Jade draws a picture, I am not sure if the kids have been encouraged to do this but she does it every week now and then folds it in 4 and it gets put in one of the prayer baskets that the kids take up to the alter when everything for communion is taken forward.

We never tell her what to draw, she does whatever is in her mind that day, it's usually religious in some form though, anyway for some reason yesterday she didn't fold the paper, I think it was because we ran slightly late and she actually didn't get to finish the picture off, so she walked forward to where all the kids where, she of course always pushes her way to the front which makes Dave and I cringe but anyway. So I saw Father bend down and speak to her and I thought, oh my gosh now what ? He took the picture from Jade and asked her her name and if he could show the congregation her picture, of course she grabbed her 5 minutes of fame with open arms (hehehe), now you have to remember this church holds about 4000 people and right now so soon after Christmas all the Masses are pretty much full. So Father showed everyone her picture, he then asked Jade if he could hang onto it and use it as part of his Homily and for what she knows of Homily, she said yes, everyone giggled and well he promised to get the picture back to her, and off they all went with the teacher.

Now obviously she was not there for the Homily but my golly what was amazing is she drew the picture below which was Jesus in the manger with the star above and well his Homily had to do with just that ... so right in the middle of his Homily he once again brought that picture out and referred to his budding artist Jade and her beautiful picture which painted a true picture of the Gospel for that night, can you believe this ???

Dave and I were blown away and it was such a proud moment, now I was wondering how he was going to get the picture back to her but he had chosen her to bring the prayer basket forward so when she went forward with all the rest taking forward the Communion goodies, he gave her her picture back, it really was a cool moment.



Now when we got to the car we of course told her how very lucky she was to have had that opportunity etc. but we also had to tell her that yes she got lucky but from now on that she must fold her picture as the Father does not have time during Mass to look at pictures, we told her that he looks at everything in the prayer baskets later and he will see her pics there, you see we know her well enough that come next week, she is going to get right up there in the Fathers face with a new picture :-) only next week might be a different Father etc. we also told her that she needs to give some other kids chance to take up the prayer baskets as she has already done it 3 times recently, it's so cute to see how involved she wants to be but my golly, give the other kids a chance.

So that was another proud parent moment in our lives :-)