friends in the book

I had an awesome experience last Sunday. I was invited to participate in Sunday School at Beth El Zedek Synagogue. The class of high school sophomores have been studying about the genocide in Darfur since they were a class of 8th graders. So, my visit was for the purpose of talking about Darfur,showing them a documentary, and talking about Oct. 14th.
I arrived in time to catch the tail end of Mr. Rothenberg's lesson. It seemed the topic was about suffering and not presuming to understand God's will. All, I know is that I was extremely excited about hearing what was being taught. My only experience with Jewish teachings in from the Bible. I've never had the pleasure of being in a Jewish classroom. To me this is special because we have the same God and the Jewish teachings are part of my faith. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus loves the Jews and longs to see all except Him as Lord.
The students were kind of squirrely during the video, but after the video they really perked up and asked me some hard questions. "What is our government doing about Darfur?" "When are we going to stop just sending journalists in to Darfur and send doctors, or even people with guns?!" "Can we really do anything to help the people in Darfur?"
While walking out of the synagogue, I followed behind a mom carrying her 3 year old son. She was telling him a story, the story of the Israelites. She told about the long journey through the dessert to Babylon. As she re-told the story I was greatly moved. I thought, this is what we are told in the Bible! Parents tell these stories of God's mighty power to your children and to your children's children. Talk about My story when you wake and before you sleep, as you walk along the road, as you live your everyday life. For that moment I saw the Word come to life and I felt a kinship through that Word.