A story on the theme of Exodus 18:13-26

Theme: Life in God’s family is better when everyone works together.

Change the names and genders and parental configurations as works best for your context.

Andy’s church was going to hold a big Easter egg hunt at the park next door to their church. His Sunday School class had been raising money for books for a school in a village in Africa. In fact, one Sunday they had even been able to use a computer to meet some of the children in Africa. Those kids were really nice. That was really fun and it made Andy and his friends want to get even more money for the books. When he heard about the Easter egg hunt and remembered what it had been like the year before, he got an idea. He wondered if he could sell lemonade. He wouldn’t charge much, but with all the things going on at the Easter egg hunt, kids would get thirsty and might not just want water from the drinking fountain. They could ask their parents for money and buy lemonade.

Andy began to plan for a lemonade stand. He didn’t want to just come up with an idea and make his parents do it for him. He realized pretty quickly that he couldn’t do it alone, so he started  to think about a friend who could help him. Andy thought that he was pretty good as selling things, but if he didn’t make very good lemonade, he wouldn’t sell much. Who could make really good lemonade? He knew that one of his classmates, Barbara, could. So he called her and told her about his idea and ask if she’d like to join him. She said, “Yes.” right away. 

But what if they sold all their lemonade and kids were still thirsty? Who could run back to church and make more. Barbara’s friend in the class, Sasha, probably could. By this time he and Barbara were realizing that the project was bigger than they first thought. They got wondering who would want warm lemonade on a hot day? Someone would need to be sure there was enough ice...and cups to put the ice in...and an ice chest to get the ice out of. And what about tables and chairs. That would take a couple strong guys to carry over and back from church, maybe Pat and Frederick? The lemonade stand would be prettier if it had a table cloth and some flowers. They thought they’d heard Sally talking about flowers in her garden at home. Suddenly they realized that some people liked extra sugar in their lemonade or a slice of real lemon. Who would get that? They were going to need the whole class to help.

Finally they made a list of all the names of the kids in the class. Next to most of them they had written something that that kid would do or bring. Finally there was only one name left -- Phillip. When they thought about Phillip, they thought about the fact he was the smallest kid in the class so he probably wouldn’t be good at carrying heavy things. He had once made some of the worst kool-aid that anyone had every tasted. Better keep him away from the lemonade making. What could he do? They really wanted everyone to have a part. Oh. Yes. They thought of it, both, at once. They needed a sign so that people didn’t think this was a little group drinking lemonade. People needed to know the lemonade was for sale. And why did they think about a sign when they thought about Phillip? ----- Because he was a wonderful artist and could probably make the best sign of anyone in the class. So they weren’t just giving Phillip something to do so he’d have something to do. They were giving him something to do because they needed it done and he was certainly the one to do it. What a great team they would make -- selling lemonade that would raise money for those books they wanted to buy for the kids they had met on the computer.

I wonder what I could do or you could do if you were a part of their team?