Take away the DVD players and the X-boxes from a neighborhood full of children and what happens? Games of freeze tag, backyard baseball, and touch football break out. The sound of children's laughter is heard all over the block. Parents get to know each other, share stories, and swap memories.
Just behind our house is the Temporary Lodging Facility (TLF); the place where families stay when their household goods (including collections of videos and video games) have been packed up and are in transit to or from Albuquerque. Summer is the moving season, and the TLF stays busy.
On these summer evenings the kids and I enjoy hopping the back fence and playing in the neighborhood games. Last night it was twilight baseball, the evening before it was dodgeball.
One of the parents who recently sold their house and is staying in the TLF for 3 weeks said, "I've never seen so many children! This is like another world from our neighborhood on Tramway; we never saw any children besides our own!"
After talking for a while he asked me some questions about adoption, which as usual, allowed me an opportunity to talk about Jesus and the family of God.
Community comes alive when children are unplugged.
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