Average Boy’s Above-Average Year by Bob Smiley

Author:Bob Smiley [Smiley, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUVENILE FICTION / Religious / Christian / Humorous, JUVENILE FICTION / Religious / Christian / Values & Virtues
ISBN: 9781684284078
Publisher: Focus on the Family
Published: 2022-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

However, the best way I serve over Christmas break is helping my youth group take a trailer full of gifts to a women’s shelter. The shelter helps give Moms and their kids a safe place to stay. But living there means they don’t have much of anything for Christmas. The church encouraged families to bring in presents all month. Dad owns a truck, so he volunteered to pull the trailer to the shelter.

This is the big morning. Dad and I drive to the church parking lot. The rest of the youth group is meeting us at the shelter. I help Dad back up the truck and hook up the trailer.

Five minutes into our trip, I look out my window.

“Hey, there’s a trailer passing us that looks just like ours,” I say.

“That’s strange,” Dad points out. “There’s no truck pulling it.”

I look behind our truck and notice our trailer is missing. Dad sees the same thing.

“That’s our trailer!” Dad says calmly.

“I’m sorry!” I calmly shout back. “I must not have fastened the hitch tight enough. What are we going to do?”

“I’ve got an idea,” Dad says. “Hold on.”

Dad speeds alongside the trailer. Then he turns slightly to nudge the trailer off the road. At first I think he’s crazy, and that he’s ruining the truck’s paint job.

Then I look ahead and see a sign: Hay for Sale. Eight gigantic, round haystacks sit by the side of the road. My dad guides the trailer into the first haystack. Hay flies everywhere, but the trailer stops safely.

“That was amazing!” I shout

“Where do you think your superpowers come from?” Dad says with a smile.

Ten minutes later we’re back on the road.

“Sorry about the hitch mess-up,” I say.

“No problem,” Dad says. “I should’ve double-checked before driving off. Now let’s go make some kids happy.”

“You’ve already made one kid happy.” I grin.

It’s a great moment . . . until Dad says, “You did remember to close the door of the trailer after you checked to see if the gifts were okay, right?”

Once we gather up all the presents from the road, we head to the women’s shelter. Everyone’s waiting. We quickly unload the trailer and hand out gifts. Then we bring all the kids together to read the story of Jesus’ birth. My youth pastor lets me read the story, because I’ve done such a great job with the presents.

I start reading, but then my ad-lib skills take over. In my defense, the story does become more modern and relatable. And I don’t change it that much.

Instead of a stable, I tell everyone that Joseph and Mary have to stay at a Super 7 Motel. If you’ve ever stayed at one, you know it’s a lot like sleeping in an animal stall. When I get to the part about the three wise men bringing gifts to baby Jesus, I make them gold, a Frankenstein action figure, and a video game called Mysteries of Myrrh.

That’s when my youth pastor takes over reading. Again, some people don’t appreciate my talent for winging it.

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