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Thursday, December 25, 2014

Cool Beans! To Lauren from Kevan

Cool Beans!



Last year, I was introduced to one of Emma’s favorite books, Wonder.  It tells a fictional story of a boy named August, who was born with a severely deformed face.  He finally works up the courage to attend grade school for the first time in the fifth grade.  As would be expected, this experience was met with significant challenges from kids making fun of him, to being horrified by him, to simply ignoring him.

As a reader, we can all relate to poor August and his desire to fit in.  In one small chapter enters my hero.  Her name is Summer.  But for those of you who know her, you can call her Lauren.  She notices August left to sit by himself as he eats his lunch.



“Hey, is this seat taken?”

I looked up, and a girl I never saw before was standing across from my table with a lunch tray full of food.  She had long wavy brown hair, and wore a brown T-shirt with a purple peace sign on it.

“Uh, no,” I said.

She put her lunch tray on the table, plopped her backpack on the floor, and sat down across from me.  She started to eat the mac and cheese on her plate.

“Ugh,” she said after swallowing the first bite.  “I should have brought a sandwich like you did.”

“Yeah,” I said nodding.

“My name is Summer, by the way.  What’s yours?”

“August.”

“Cool,” she said.

“Summer!” Another girl came over to the table carrying a tray.  “Why are you sitting here? Come back to the table.”

“It was too crowded,” Summer answered her.  “Come sit here. There’s more room.”

The other girl looked confused for a second.  I realized she had been one of the girls I had caught looking at me just a few minutes earlier: hand cupped over her mouth, whispering.  I guess Summer had been one of the girls at that table, too.

“Never mind,” said the girl, leaving.

Summer looked at me, shrugged-smiled, and took another bite of her mac and cheese.

“Hey, our names kind of match,” she said as she chewed. 

I guess she could tell I didn’t know what she meant.

“Summer?  August?” she said, smiling, her eyes open wide, as she waited for me to get it.

“Oh yeah,” I said after a second.

“We can make this the ‘summer only’ lunch table,” she said.  “Only kids with summer names can sit here.
……

By the end of lunch, we had come up with a whole list of names of kids and teachers who could sit at our table if they wanted.  Most of the names weren’t actually summer names, but they were names that had some kind of connection to summer.

“But if someone doesn’t have a summer name and wants to sit with us,” she said very seriously, “we’ll still let them if they’re nice, okay?”

“Okay.”  I nodded. “Even if it’s a winter name.”

“Cool beans,” she answered, giving me a thumbs-up.





So, does anyone remember who showed up with the loaded jar of jelly bellies (aka cool beans) to share with everyone at the Kenney Family Reunion?  Yep, that’s right.  It was Lauren.

As my service to Lauren Schow for Christmas this year, I decided to have our family imitate her ability to serve others in countless small, yet significant ways.  For family home evening, we read the chapter about Summer and how she looked for the one person sitting alone at the lunch table.  Despite what her friends thought or said, she made that one person the most important in her world at that moment.  Which, in turn, really did mean the world to the person she was helping.

Our kids were challenged to find similar “cool beans” moments at school, at church, with neighborhood kids, and all around them.  Whenever they came home with a cool beans moment, they could choose ten jelly bellies (beans) to eat from our Lauren inspired jelly belly jar.  They could also take ten real beans and put them in our collective service jar.  Once that jar was full, there would be a special family activity to celebrate having filled it (still to be determined).

The very first week, each of our kids had stories of helping others.  They ranged from sitting by the one kid who was alone on the school bus, playing with a neighborhood kid who needed a friend, giving a hug to someone being bullied, to playing with the kid no one would play with at recess.  On some days, our kids came home telling us about multiple cool beans moments they had that day.

This has evolved to now starting our family home evenings each week with a “cool beans minute,” allowing anyone who wants to the opportunity to share a cools beans moment they had earlier in the week.

Through this experience, I have come to learn even more that Christ rarely reaches out to others through formal service projects, large donations, or even big, life-changing experiences.  Instead, His method is more often through the simple cool beans efforts of others.  Thank you Lauren for showing our family how to touch the lives of countless others through some simple cool beans.





8 comments:

  1. I'm so touched! I'm all teary and its time to get my kids and go open presents! But this is such a wonderful gift you gave to Lauren - your kids - AND so many countless number of other kids we will never know! Great Service!!!1

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  2. I've LOVED watching our kids grow by learning to look for ways to serve others. Thank you for your service Kevan, and your example of "Cool Beans" Lauren.

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  3. What a great idea! What a great way to teach your children to open their hearts to others. Lauren has always been a natural at that!

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  4. This is so sweet!! Thanks Kevin!

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  5. I think we will incorporate this in our family tooo. Hope you don't mind :) Katherine

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  6. That is absolutely fantastic Kevan! I LOVE the "cool beans" term for those acts of service. I am feeling the same about gifts this year......... we went and sang at a very special wing of the Mayo Clinic where some very very sick patients were being helped and some of the families visiting came out to hear us sing and were so glad we took the time to come and wish them a Merry Christmas. No one should be alone and in a hospital at Christmas. I want to do more things like that....... I LOVE your gift to Lauren. And what a great way for your family to grow more "christ-like" as well. Thanks so much for sharing. Love you :)

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