Learning About the Value of Forgiveness

Last Saturday Ty celebrated First Reconciliation with his class. It is a Catholic tradition in learning about the blessing of forgiveness.  Ty is one of maybe three in his class that are not Catholic, but he got to be part of the celebration and participate.

We woke up early Saturday to be at the church by 8:40 am and both Tyler and I looked at each other and asked "Do we really need to be there?". 

It would have been so nice to sleep in finally after waking up early and running out the door all week. 

But... Ty was eager and ready before any of us. 

He got dressed, ate his breakfast and waited for us at the door.

This kid is handsome in his khaki's and jacket.  He used to be so hard to dress... period, much less dress up in nice clothes. When he was really little he was so incredibly hard to dress, Tyler and I used to dress him in clothes for pre-school at bedtime! I think about those days and laugh because it sounds so ridiculous, but that's what worked back then. As a parent you do what works.

So, here he was, years later... all dressed up, looking all GQ and ready for the day....

Miss Mylie was happy to sport her boots. If you ever run into her she will lift her foot to show off whatever shoe she is wearing. 

She's says, "Hi, look at my shoe. Pretty, huh? No dada, he's not here. Bye!" 

The students lined up outside the church prayerfully 

and walked down the aisle to their seats with their families. 

We all sang and listened to the children each tell a part of the parable of the Prodigal Son. They all stood up at the podium and into the microphone recited their 2-3 sentence section of the parable. 

Ty's was at the end. 

He was awesome! So confident, so happy to be there, taking it all in very respectfully.

It was such a beautiful celebration! How could we ever have missed this? 

And the icing on the cake that day was meeting Frederick from Rwanda. He is a friend and student at Tyler's school. Frederick comes every year to learn English and to travel around the country speaking to audiences about his orphanage in Rwanda and his life as a victim of the genocide in his country.

Ty was so curious about his missing hands and didn't know whether to ask him about it or not, but kept staring. So Frederick told him all about what happened: 

"At 15 years old I was beaten by some bad guys who cut off my hands with a machete and left me to die. But, I didn't die. I am so grateful that I am alive, God always has a way and I forgive the bad guys because of all the good in the world. I am so blessed!"

so blessed, so blessed!!!