More twisting of scripture (quotes, part 3)

Here's a story from the early years that never made it into a prayer letter.

Once we began to understand how powerful the audio scriptures could be for non-literate people, we decided to play the dramatized Bible on tape for our preschoolers each night before bed. Naturally I presumed that our children would pick up on godly characteristics from the stories they were hearing.

Little did I know, but as soon as I left the room, they would rewind the cassette to repeatedly play and memorize some of the goriest passages in the Bible. Later I heard them using scripture verses to curse each other! "Just for that... I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briars..."

Yep, that's word for word from Judges 8:5-9.

Here's another short tale, which I'm embarrassed to say is equally true.

I'll never forget the day Chris carried some milk and leftovers out to some homeless beggars who rang our bell. We were living in Guatemala City, which seemingly had some sort of "hobo trail" that tagged our house as a place with food. Trying to make our kids realize how rich we were compared to the majority of the world, I used to let them carry the food out to those in need. That is until the day I heard my 3-year-old scolding a little boy (in English, thankfully!), "You go right home and wash that face of yours before you eat. We don't want to look at you. You are dirty!"

Yeah, I must have been stressing over unclean faces even then. I guess the concept of "homeless" didn't mean much to my little guy. Aagh.

Both these stories demonstrate that what we think we are teaching our children and what they are actually learning are not necessarily even remotely the same.