Sunday School and the Witch

Years ago, I was teaching a Sunday school class of three years olds each week. One particular Sunday, we had an "open house" of sorts so that parents could come and watch their darling kids in action.

It was the case that the students in my particular group of kids had very active imaginations and they would tend to drift onto off-the-wall tangents if I didn't keep them focused during the class.

I was fairly new at this teaching thing and I wanted the open house to go well. That is, I didn't want any parents worried that I might not be teaching their kids the proper things. So, the week before the open house, I spent extra time going over the Sunday school lesson with the kids, making sure they understood the points of the Bible story we had been reading. I had even put a little skit together and had the kids dress up in costumes so that we could really get the gist of the Bible story.

Now, one thing to keep in mind for this story is that little kids often have trouble pronouncing some of their consonants. The letter 'r' and the letter 'w' frequently get mixed up.

The Bible story we had read was about a woman named Lydia, mentioned in Paul's writings in the New Testament. Paul said that Lydia sold purple cloth, and we had discussed how purple cloth was usually sold to royalty and other wealthy people, people with a lot of money.

So during the open house, we sat in our story circle, parents and children together. I asked who remembered what we had talked about the previous week.

Every little hand in the circle shot up in the air. I called on a girl named Rebecca.

Rebecca smiled, nodded, and said, "We talked about Lydia."

"Very good Rebecca," I replied.

I continued with, "Who remembers what Lydia sold?"

Every little hand in the circle shot up in the air again. I called on a boy named John.

John smiled, nodded, and responded, "I think she sold purple cloth."

"Good job, John," I affirmed.

And now the big question. Would the kids remember this? I held my breath, bit my tongue, and then asked, "And who usually bought purple cloth?"

There was silence for a moment, and then Henry blurted out, "The witch! The witch!"

My face paled.

I heard a gasp in the crowd. We hadn't talked about any witch before.

"The witch?" I asked, meekly.

"Yes," Henry explained. "She sold it to the witch, people who are weally weally witch!"