Kid's Say the Darndest* Things

Dey-shai and I have been meeting at his school for about three months now--and I'd say we've hit it off pretty well. I'm officially his mentor through our church's Kid's Hope USA program. That means that I try to help him read (I refuse to help with math), play checkers (or most recently: Yatzee!), or talk with him about life and how to make better choices (more on that later). Most importantly, I try to be a steady/positive/male/Christian influence.

I confess, there are days that I feel like I'm going to fall asleep when he's reading. But there are never days when I regret coming.

At any rate, at some point during our hour together, Dey-shai, the King of Irony, always says something that makes me crack up. For example:

• "Joel. Huh. That sure is a weird name."
• "I want to be a pastor, too. Do you get paid a lot?"
• "You're a pastor. So do you own the church?" (He was quite caught up on this one for a while.)
• "Is your Dad really only 5'9"?" (He asked me this one three weeks straight).
• "Did you brush your teeth this morning? Because no offense, you smell really weird." (In my own defense, yes, I did brush my teeth. Probably more than once. It's just that I had a cup of coffee on the way to school to fend off the aforementioned drowsiness. But yes, I should have known better--especially when I think about my sixth grade teacher's coffee breath and how it prohibited me from asking for help on my math homework. I probably would've been an engineer if it wasn't for her caffeine addiction.)
• Any trash talking during checkers. I really love Dey-shai, but seriously, he's one of the world's worst checkers players. He has no business trash talking.

Well, last week, Dey-shai moved beyond the humorous and was--well, touching. Dey-shai was in some trouble for having a little attitude with his teacher. When I came in, he was writing out his confession (a regular part of the discipline at his school, it seems). Only this time, he wasn't writing it to his teacher. He was writing to God. It doesn't look like a lot here, but it took up about half a page with his handwriting. This is what he had to say:

Dear Lord I'm sorry for all the things I did wrong. I can change my ways and I can change my addatude tords people.
Lord I am sorry for using your name in vane and can you help me get out of the mess I'm going throuw.
Lord can you come in my hart can you come into every bodies harts.

I told you it was touching.

Unfortunately, he didn't get to finish it up. But we did get to talk about prayer, and how God might help him stay out of trouble. I wasn't sure if I was "allowed" to at first (as part of Kid's hope, we have to promise not to proselytize), but figured if Dey-shai brought it up I was in the clear. And besides, Dey-shai put my mind to rest. "We're not supposed to talk about God in school," he said. "But you can--you're a pastor."

*If "darndest" is offensive to you or your young children, email me and I'll change the title.