Ryan

     Every year I look forward to the parade of little people that will enter my classroom.  As we meet each other I only know a few facts about them and they only know that I look like a grandma and I teach in "The Castle Room."
     A few years ago a student walked into my classroom and captured my heart within moments.  He was small in stature but had a huge heart in that tiny little body!  He blessed me and taught me so much that year.
     Ryan made me face one of my challenges.  I had a very hard time hearing him so I wore hearing aides the whole year (it helps when your husband is an Audiologist!).  I am so glad I did because I wouldn't want to have missed a thing he said!
     As I shared earlier, I teach a unit on "How to Be a Friend to Someone With a Disability" by Joni Eareckson Tada.  During the month the children in my classroom earn money to send to Joni to refurbish a wheelchair for a child in another country that needs one.  That particular year, the money was coming in rather slowly.  I wondered if the kids were not understanding and if the unit was meaningful to them.  We moved on to our next unit and the kids and I prayed for the rest of the money.
     Over the next couple of weeks Ryan shared with me that he was going to have a garage sale.  Each day he would mention someone knew that had donated something.  I really didn't think that much about it.  Looking back on it,  Ryan was so excited and I wish that I had slowed down to pay more attention.
     The morning of his garage sale, God woke me up.  I jumped out of bed and told my husband Bill to wake up because we needed to go to a garage sale.  I had an address and a subdivision but no map (for some reason I thought I could just find it).  We drove around for awhile and ended up stopping at their neighborhood center to look at a map.
     When we finally arrived at Ryan's house it was 10:30 a.m..  The garage door was closed and there wasn't a sale in sight.
     As soon as I rang the doorbell I heard someone yell, "Mrs. Boggess is here!   Mrs. Boggess is here!"                        When Ryan came to the door I asked him if he was still having a garage sale.  He told me that he did have one but they had finished.
     I said, "Well, do you have anything left?  I would like to buy something."
     Ryan immediately ran out the door and opened the garage door.  There were all kinds of things on the floor.  It looked like a garage sale that a 5 year-old had set up.  He had told me earlier in the week that he made some paintings for the garage sale so I asked him if there were any left.  Ryan showed me a couple and I fell in love with one and asked him if I could buy it.  He said, "Yes" and I asked him how much it was.  He told me it would cost 10 cents.
    I said, "Oh no, I think at least $5."
     I turned to Bill and asked him if he had a five and as he pulled out a ten he said that was all he had.  I handed Ryan the ten dollar bill and he started to put it in his money bag and said,
     "There is no change."
     I started laughing and said that was fine.  I looked at his bag full of money and asked him what he was going to do with it.
     Ryan, looked up at me with such sincerity and said, "It is for the wheelchair, Mrs. Boggess, it is for the wheelchair!"
     I started to cry and thanked him over and over again.  What an incredible moment I will never forget! It had not occurred to me that it was for the wheelchair and here he was continually thinking about it.  He raised more than enough money to send to Joni and her ministry.   His beautiful painting still hangs in my classroom to this day.