Tutored at Wanamaker today. John Dillard did much better in initial glides. I left Wanamaker with a headache which lingered most of the day. Delores had little Mark in for lunch. Mark is Joey's nephew. Joey, our pusher friend. Joey lives with his sister Florence, her son Mark, and Florence's boyfriend, across the street on the third floor. Joey and Florence are white, and Mark's father is black. That makes Mark look Spanish or Puerto Rican. Mark's about five years old. He's an ornery little kid too, but he worships Delores.

Since Barb was trying to get ready to go home this afternoon, Delores and I handled the Bible Treasure Hour at 17th and Thompson. The Bible Treasure Hour was something Barb devised to take up the three Fridays (afternoons) a month that we girls didn't go to camp. We fixed this huge cardboard box into a Teen Haven Treasure Chest, and kept the lesson, and the memory verse, and songs, and prizes, and Yung An the puppet in it. Each Friday, we go to a different center, drive the van around with a loud speaker, and invite kids to come to the Teen Haven Bible Treasure Hour. We try to do something extra special, usually. Like Barb might tell her Ten Commandments story. She has a story board with ten balloons tacked to it. Each time the story character breaks a commandments, the first kid to catch it gets to break a balloon. They love that! Sometimes Pam brings along her puppet theater and does a puppet show.

Anyway, today those kids were live wires! The only time they were quiet was while we were teaching them Amazing Grace, doing the Bible Verse Concentration game, and teaching the half of the Genesis 1:1 lesson. When I was describing how Satan ruined God's beautiful creation, I ripped the picture (flashcard, rather, it was a home made one) in half.

One of the little girls exclaimed, "Why'd you tear that picture? That was a pretty picture!"

And I said, "Well, I just wanted to show you how God had a beautiful world, and when we disobeyed Him, we ruined it, just like I ruined this picture.”

We left feeling not much had been accomplished, when the head lady drove up and said, "Oh, that's what the kids were talking about. They said they had a good time today, and I couldn't figure out what was so special today."

That made us feel better! Those Genesis lessons were developed by Barb. See, one of the frustrations has been not being able to find good teaching material especially relating to inner city Black kids. In most Child Evangelism, or Bible Club Movement lessons, the pictures weren't right, the applications weren't applicable, or the language was far removed from what the kids were used to hearing. So, every week Barb would develop a lesson from Genesis, and visualize it. Then, at women's staff meeting on Monday afternoon, she would present it to us, and we'd each make a copy of it. It was simple. We just used construction paper, magic markers, glue, and lots of pictures from Ebony magazine.

Delores and I took my twentieth street girls swimming tonight at Memorial Hall and then to Gino's. I have to admit that being the only white body in the swimming pool made me feel very, very…conspicuous –at first. Like being the only white face on the bus-only more naked. But eventually I didn’t even think about it. Joanne Noland came, and Barbara Maxey. Laverne and Charlene couldn't come because they didn't do their work. Laverne was so disappointed and her mom really felt for her, I think.

She said gently, "Next time you can go and you'll do your work.”

Delores and I were talking around 12:00 a.m. She’s the most selfless, serene person I ever met. Her family was opposed to her coming here at first. She’d worked a year or two out of high school as a secretary in Lancaster where she’s from. She’s around my age, my height, more slender, has long blond hair and blue eyes which fascinate the kids. After Gomer left, she held down Broad Street by herself without batting an eye! She drives the school bus to camp and sometimes covers for Barb as camp director. She takes kids from the neighborhood with her when she goes home and has gradually won her parents over.

Anyway, the door bell rang. It was Bernie wanting Delores to run them to the hospital. Reggie had cut his finger really badly he had a cloth around it, but blood was still running down over it. We took Reggie, his mom, Cook and Bernie to the emergency ward and sat there till around 2:00 a.m.! The guys were really evasive about what happened, but apparently it happened with a bottle. All kinds of activity going on at the emergency ward. This drunk old lady gave us all quite a bit of entertainment. Her neighbors had brought her in because she fell and hurt her hip. She wouldn't go in and she wouldn't leave. She even made pretense of falling on the floor and crawling around, when she couldn't get anyone to pay any attention to her! The police finally escorted her out. Reggie got 12 stitches in his finger!