“Free Books for Summer Reading”
That’s what the sign said. Along with the books were water bottles and Oreo cookies provided on the tables.
If you came to our Coracle – Arlington ministry space at 8:30 AM just a week or so ago you would have seen kids with backpacks and their parents standing right in front of our door. It turns out there is a school bus stop right here. That gave us an idea about getting to know our new neighbors.
So, the signs went up and on Wednesday, June 14th, the tables came out, along with the books & snacks. Then right around 12:30 pm, parents returned and a school bus came back. Kids told us what books they liked to read, what books their siblings liked to read, how they had started reading chapter books, and much more. Books went into bags. Conversations happened with entire families. We started getting to know each other and then another school bus came. More kids, more cookies, more books and more conversations. Four different school buses from four different schools came to that bus stop. Just one block down 7th Road South, another bus dropped off high school students. There are lots of stories to tell from our conversations around the book tables. I will mention one.
A high school student walked behind the book tables, just slipping by. He picked up a water bottle and a thin beginner’s book for his little sister and then sat down on the steps behind the tables, waiting. When his mom came a few minutes later to pik his sister up from her bus, we could brag about him, “What a great brother! He picked out a book to read to his little sister!” The mom smiled (and he did too) as she said, “Oh yeah. He’ll be reading and reading that book to her. She’ll love it!”
“Free Books for Summer Reading.” Conversations over a book table. We are beginning to meet the community Coracle is being invited into here in South Arlington.
Each week Coracle’s newsletter links to a different Community newsletter from one of our various spaces – from Baltimore, from the DMV, from the Shenandoah Valley, and from the Repentance Project. We want you to know what God is doing in and through Coracle, to journey together. Simply put, Coracle exists to help each of us go deeper into God so that we can go deeper into the world with God’s redeeming love and power. Because, the world is broken and Jesus is real. John 3:16, 17.