It was 2:30 PM, Tuesday afternoon.
“Señora!” a chorus of voices hollered from outside our property hedge. “Open the gate!”
“Just wait,” I called back. “It’s not three o’clock yet.”
Disgruntled murmurings sounded from the other side of the hedge. I turned to my wailing baby. Sinking into the rocker to feed her, I closed my eyes to relish each quiet moment before the coming tumult.
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We had scarcely settled on the farm when the neighbor children found us. They appeared – uninvited and unannounced any time of day – to stay as long as they wished. The first ones soon brought more friends along to join in their play with the foreigner’s children and toys. Play-Doh and table games entertained them but oh, what a commotion ten children could make in a concrete house.
After much exasperation, Ernest (my husband) and I finally came up with a plan… They could come two afternoons a week, arriving no earlier than three o’clock in the afternoon. On Tuesdays they could stay for supper, but on Thursdays they must leave by 6 PM.
What an opportunity! This was one way I could reach the world while being a stay-at-home mom… I read them Bible stories. I taught them the need to respect and obey grownups. I told them they needed to obey me, just as my children were expected to. Transgressors, I warned, would be sent home.
Zinnia did not believe me, until the day she disobeyed and was expelled. I grin now, remembering the little troublemaker perching on the neighbor’s wall, peering over into our farm where her cousins were happily playing. Once had taught her; after that Zinnia obeyed.
We had rules… Our children needed to stay within my eyesight and earshot when playing with neighbor children. And NO closed doors. Still, questions niggled my brain. Is this a good thing or a bad one? Will we live to regret it? What if they are a bad influence on our children? My questions formed a prayer, one which God had been hearing from me quite a bit these past months. Lord, give me wisdom and patience with these children today. And if they are a bad influence on our children, Lord, please reveal that to us before our children are harmed.
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“Señora!” Zinnia’s voice interrupted my reverie. “Is it three o’clock yet?”
I opened one eye to peek at the clock – 2:47.
“Not quite!” I hollered out the window. Placing baby into the walker, I headed to the kitchen. What would I feed them tonight?
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“Zinnia, I need to look in your purse before you go home.”
It was Tuesday evening again, several months later. We had been missing various small things after Zinnia started bringing a purse along on her visits to our house. Tonight, we would see if our suspicions were correct.
Zinnia’s terror-filled eyes met mine. “Just a minute, Señora. I need to use the bathroom.”
“You can use the bathroom after we look in your purse.”
“No, Señora, I can’t wait…”, her voice trailed off as she rushed to the bathroom.
I sighed. Of course, her purse would be empty when she came back out. Searching the bathroom later that night revealed treasures hidden here and there.
“Let’s chat a little, Zinnia,” I invited the following week. Zinnia sat on the bed, twisting yarn knots on the comforter, her eyes defensive; fearful. My heart yearned for the dear girl. Her mom had left years ago to work in another country, leaving the girls with their Grandma.
“I don’t care about those things you stole, Zinnia,” I began. “But it’s a habit you don’t want to start. God cares about you…”
That was the last time Zinnia, her sister, and their cousins showed up at our place. “Our Grandma doesn’t let us come anymore,” they explained.
Maybe it was Grandma; I think it was God. I had prayed much that He would make it clear if their visits were harmful to our children and if they should end. My heart was torn between love for the neighbor children and protection for my own. This was the way God chose to answer.
“Thank you, God,” I prayed. “We’ll take this as your answer, and not invite them back. Send them over if you want them to come again.”
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Several years passed. Now it was Jon, a neighbor boy, frequenting our home.
“Could he come to your house every day after school?” his parents had wondered. “We want him to learn good things, instead of playing with boys in our neighborhood.”
Hmm. So, we’re to raise the boy while both parents work?
“He can come Tuesday and Thursday afternoons,” Ernest decided. “Those are the days I’m more often at home.”
Jon showed up faithfully on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Problem was, Ernest didn’t. Other responsibilities and obligations kept coming up, hindering him from being there like he wanted to.
I did not want to nag my husband… He really wished he could be at home, working with the boys. Should I say something, or not? It didn’t seem ideal to have an unconverted boy working for hours with our son, a new Christian.
I did mention my questions to Ernest, but mostly I made it a matter of prayer.
Jon stopped coming. I was amazed. I felt for Jon, yet once again I thanked God for His answer.
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“How can I reach out to my neighbor children without compromising my own?” a friend asked recently. Moving to a new area, she faces the challenge of neighbor children coming over.
There are no simple answers. I have discovered the urgency of prayer, and God’s faithfulness in answering when we cry out to Him for wisdom. His answer to others may well be different from what He worked out for us.
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Another sister granted me permission to share their experience in relating with neighbor children.
Alex and his mother live across the road from us and began attending church soon after we moved here. Alex came over almost every day and taught our boys Spanish in short order. The boys dreaded his visits at first, but they soon became great friends. After a while another neighbor boy, Nilton, started coming at times and we thought he seemed decent enough. Then one day a third boy, José, came along. I got a distinctly uncomfortable feeling. I gave them a time limit, but just couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. So, though I thought I didn’t have time, I decided I would work outside the whole time while they were here. I worked close to them and kept an eye on things and thought everything was fine. They seemed to just be playing together nicely, so I was surprised when they went home before the time was up.
It wasn’t long before my boys came in crying; they felt so bad about what had happened. Alex had asked them to deliver a note to his girlfriend because his mom wouldn’t like it if he did. One of the other boys told them what he does out behind bushes at public school, so he doesn’t get caught. They tried to get my boys to promise not to tell me. They didn’t promise, and I was so thankful! But they were very torn up because they thought Alex would not be their friend anymore.
My husband and I talked with the boys and assured them that they had handled the situation correctly by not promising to keep secrets. Within the hour, Alex’s mom came over to visit and we told her about it. She was very alarmed that her son had tried to pass a note and later took care of the situation with her son. I was glad that the budding relationship he had with the neighbor girl was stopped before it went any farther. Alex’s friendship with our boys has continued but the other two boys discovered that our boys had told us about them and didn’t come over for years after that.
José recently asked our eight-year-old son if he could come over to his house and play. I said no. His grandma came over several days later, offended, and said that José was very sad about it. I explained that I feel I must always be with my boys if he would come over because one time he had tried to get our son to play an electronic war game with him. The grandma understood and was sad that her grandson was a bad influence. She wanted the best for him. We have invited him to Sunday School, but he doesn’t want that. I just hope that we can always have the type of relationship with our children that they will feel free to come to us and not keep these situations to themselves and feel guilty.
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Wise parents seek to remove danger, but not difficulty, from their children’s path. I was recently amazed while reading Judges 3, to discover that God wanted some enemy nations to remain in the land of Canaan. Why? He wanted parents to teach their children war (v. 2). Instead, the children of Israel made friends with the enemy nations and began to intermarry. “It seems we live closer to the world here on the mission field,” one sister shared. Our children are growing up on the front lines, as it were. This can be positive. They have frequent opportunities to “speak with the enemy in the gates,” where they are asked what we believe, and why. But when parents are lax, or their children are rebellious, this closer association with the world can prove tragic.
As we connect with God in prayer for our children, we must also connect with them. No strict safety guidelines will substitute a close relationship with your child. The mother of a child who was abused shared, “The only way your child will tell you what is going on is if you have a close relationship.”
I stagger as I consider our enemy and my own inadequacy as a mother. Suddenly I am seized with urgency to pray for things which never entered my head when our children were still young. Abuse cases exist around us; at times in our very midst. I pray for our children’s protection from the evil which surrounds them and that which rises in their hearts. I pray they will never mar another’s purity. I pray for purity at the marriage altar, both for them and their future spouses.
I pray with urgency, yet with confidence. Because this I know: God loves our children. He cares about their purity and protection even more than we as parents do. He longs for us to partner with Him in raising them to be faithful servants of His. He wants to show Himself strong on behalf of humble parents who cry out to Him as they train soldiers in enemy territory. For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him… -2 Chronicles 16:9.
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