Little Lady

Last Sunday was our church's annual Ministry Fair, where representatives of all the different ministries in our church set up booths to provide folks with info on how they can help out. Or, more accurately, to give the hard sell to anyone who ventures within range. Since there were only a few people in my class, we decided to postpone the lesson until next week and partake of the fair, where H.Q. and Freezeout were manning* the Singles Ministry booth and Papa Lightbulb (who flew in that morning and flew back that evening) had a booth to help promote his Austin church plant. These booths and many others were located inside the gymnasium, but we decided we'd start with the few booths that were located in the lounge area outside.

We barely managed to escape the very first booth.

You see, the first booth was run by a very talkative elderly gentleman who obviously felt very strongly about his ministry and the many, many, many publications they produced, which he kept handing to us one by one. Now, I commend his commitment, but his steady stream of conversation gave us no real opportunity to offer to sign up for anything, let alone move on to the next booth. The crowning moment of our encounter came when he began talking up one of the booklets in particular, telling us about how he knew of a 10 year old boy who used it to witness to his best friend. And then came the moment that makes this story worth telling: he leaned over towards Squiggly, held out the booklet to her, and said in his best grandfatherly tone, "And this little lady could take it and witness to her friends."

Yes, the kindly old man mistook the grad student for a pre-teen.

That made the 20-minutes trapped at the booth more than worth it.

*Yes, and womanning