A Proper Introduction

Our church has recently supported the arrival of a refugee family from Africa, a husband and wife and their three young children. The family arrived three or four months ago after a very long and difficult immigration experience made more complicated by the birth of their third child, which delayed the process by two years, and a hearing-related handicap in their eldest daughter. That aside, they've now arrived and are getting settled in, with the assistance of two or three dedicated parishioners.

I've sat close to the family at church on two or three occasions, and they are very nice people. The children seem to be adjusting to North American life with relative ease, and are very social and friendly.

I think that there has been some uncertainty about Sunday School, and whether the children will go or not. In the past, I've seen them find a quiet place with one of the parents to play during the service rather than go with the other children, but yesterday, they all trouped off with the group. When they reappeared at communion, I almost burst out laughing, because it was immediately clear to me that the children had received the absolutely quintessential proper introduction to Canadian Sunday School.

All three of them were COVERED from head to toe with glitter. The eldest had a gigantic swoosh of glittery glue across her forehead. Glitter rained down on their mother and their father and the woman from the church who was sitting with them.

And it was entirely GRAND.