An Unexpected Prize

I had three sets of friends as a child: at school, in the trailer park, at church.  Their paths rarely crossed.  I saw my church friends on Sundays and Wednesday nights, school friends at school, neighborhood friends after school during the week and on Saturdays.

Part of this was due to the odd coincidence that both my neighborhood and church friends were at least a few months younger than I was, so ended up in a different school grade, resulting in different classes and sometimes different schools entirely.  The other cause of this segregation was intentional.  Oh, I knew I was supposed to evangelize my non-churched friends and I did invite them once or twice to special events such as Vacation Bible School.  But, I could never picture my friends from school or in the trailer park really understanding church, at least as I experienced it.  Maybe I sold them short, maybe I was a coward, maybe I knew I would be mortified if my school friends ever found out exactly what went on at that Pentecostal church.

Still, I know that the better parts of my character were formed largely by those faithful servants in that little church.  As a child, I was oblivious to any church politics that I encountered later as a teen and adult.  I just saw grown ups who were on their way to heaven and who were doing their best to bring me along, too.

One such saint taught the Junior Boys Sunday School class.  Junior Boys, as defined by the Assemblies of God Gospel Publishing House curriculum, were in 5th and 6th grade.  There was, no doubt, a Junior Girls class, too.  Maybe we even shared the same curriculum.  This was before ‘Tweens’ or ‘Preteens’ were invented.  We were ten to twelve years old, eager for mischief, easily bored.  Our core group of boys had been in church together for a few years, so we knew the Bible stories and the Sunday School drill: be on time, bring your Bible, recite that week’s scripture verse from memory.  So, by the time Sister Smithson got to us, we had worn out a couple of well-intentioned volunteers with our energetic antics.  

Yes, we called her Sister Smithson.  That was how adults were addressed in church in those days.  The men were Brothers and the women were Sisters, though kids were still called by their first name.  It gave a certain family atmosphere to church that I miss.

In any case, Sister Smithson had some advantages that the other teachers lacked.  First, she was the mother of one of our cohort.  “Ah, man, it’s your mom!”  That let the air out of one of our hot air balloons immediately.  Second, she had a certain quiet dignity that evoked respect from this disrespectful group of boys.  Sister Smithson was, in whatever vague understanding I had of the term, a lady.  Soft-spoken, tastefully dressed, patient.  Finally, she somehow knew the way to a boy’s heart: Contests, with prizes.  Say what you will about bribing children to learn, it works.  

One such contest involved cars.  Although her son was never as much a fan of Hot Wheels as I and some of the other boys were, Sister Smithson designed a racing contest.  She drew a simple oval race track on a piece of poster board.  The track was divided into segments, perhaps one for each week of the Sunday School quarter.  Then, she had each of us bring a picture of a car from a newspaper or magazine.  We cut the cars out and glued them onto a piece of cardboard.  There was much conjecture about whose car was fastest as she pinned each one to the starting line.  The prize was a large candy bar and a small amount of cash.  We were off and running.

As the weeks went on, the results were much like any race.  There were leaders, stragglers and middlers.  If you missed a week, you lost a lot of momentum.  Sort of like a botched pit stop.  You could make up the memory verse, but not much else.  As we neared the finish, there were two or three of us vying for the checkered flag.  Blessed with a good memory and a mother who made sure I was in church unless I was close to death, I was a competitive Sunday School racer.  But a strange thing happened on the way to victory circle.  I don’t recall whose car crossed the finish line first and who consequently ended up with the loot.  It might have been me.  But what I do remember was that over the weeks of striving for that prize what became more important to me than winning that contest was being in Sister Smithson’s good graces.  Not that I was afraid of getting into trouble for doing something wrong.  Instead, I learned to value seeing Sister Smithson’s smile when I had done something right.  And that is a prize I carry with me to this day.