Distracted.

Since the missionary said all of us girls are going to be taking turns teaching the junior church class during the Sunday morning service, I dutifully followed Rachel and the three African children outside to the classroom (the far end of the porch of the building we were meeting in).

The oldest boy - 14 years old - participated fully: songs, verse, Bible story, songs, verse, Bible story, etc:). The little girl made a valiant attempt at the hand motions for songs like, "Deep and Wide" and "Peter, James, & John."

But the little guy - not older than 8 - was the one who intrigued me. He sat there rather listlessly, and stared at the road as the traffic went by. He actually did perk up with one of the action songs, but that was short-lived:).

As Rachel started in on part 2 of the Bible story, the little guy got up from his seat to go get a drink of water. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him saunter the 6 or so steps to a nearby tree with a bird cage hanging on a branch... such a convenient distraction! He glanced over at Rachel before he started swinging the cage: back and forth, back and forth.

Soon the sway of the cage brought him to boredom. Not to worry though! Three dogs were in the next yard over, providing the perfect opportunity to tease the dogs into barking. Little guy began to put on a show: stand on one foot, put both hands out, and stick out a very, very pink tongue at the neighbor dogs. Of course no self-respecting dog is going to let antics like those get by and so they kindly reciprocated by barking.

The little guy enjoyed provoking the dogs and continued on for 30 seconds or so until Rachel reminded him our small little group was this way:). Little guy slowly rejoined the group, much to his chagrin I'm sure!