The young Elders invited
Sister Anderson and I to go with them to teach a young lady who is living with
her boyfriend. She is the daughter of a fairly prominent person in the
community. We had met the parents and they are good Christian people who are
caring for several foster children. These are small towns and so it seems that everybody
kind of knows what everybody else is up to. We serve as reading buddies at the
school and one of these foster children
makes it a point to come and visit with us (Mostly Sister Anderson) each week
when we provide this service. Several weeks ago she was very excited to tell us
that this young lady who is living with her boyfriend is expecting. I don’t
think she has a clue that maybe she shouldn’t be sharing that information.
While this may be the norm in many parts of the country, this part of Kansas
has a lot of conservative religious church going people.
The Elders had met with
the daughter of this prominent community person a number of times in the past
and she was very interested in their message and even came to our church on one
occasion, but they had not been able to engage the boyfriend in much
conversation in the past. On this particular evening the boyfriend chose to
share with us their circumstances and that they were getting married in June, and
that several of the religious leaders in the town had made some disparaging
remarks about them expecting before being married. He wanted to know what our
church taught. We shared with them that the Lord is more focused on who we are
and who we can become that who we were.
They do want to raise
their child in a good environment and she has a desire to continue the discussions;
the boyfriend said he might be open to that.
