Each year the school where I teach, Windham Christian Academy, has a talent show for students of all grade levels.  The 2019 talent show was last month, and there were about a dozen acts including elementary, middle and high school aged students.  The acts included several piano players, a violinist, accordion player, a sign language song, dance and gymnastics and more.  Once again, I had the honor of being the emcee. But in many ways the highlight of the evening was the three "celebrity" judges played by faculty members. They were characterization of Ceelo Green, Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul. They were very, very funny in these roles.

The actual judges- selecting most entertaining, most unique, most inspiring and rising star (elementary school only) - were the three graduating seniors. While they deliberated, I filled the time with two juggling routines.  The second routine I did was "Jesus is Victor". While my friend Pastor Fred sings his classic song by this title (Lord, I miss my friend Fred so much. Tell him I said hello) I juggle and toss balls into the audience. When they toss them back I go right back into juggling. While performing this routine I looked up and saw Jake, a fourth grader who already knows how to juggle, standing in the center aisle with two balls just waiting for,me to throw one to him.  I tossed him a ball, and without hesitation he went right into juggling all three! The kid is only nine (he learned to juggle from his older brother, Sam, who is in my class). Jake tossed the ball back and I continued in my routine. While this was a little thing, it clearly meant a lot to Jake, and it was one of the best parts of my evening. 

I did elementary Chapel a couple days later and  when Jake saw I was the one doing it, he got permission from his teacher to go back to his room and get his balls. I didnt have that routine in the service that morning, but we had fun just the same. And I gotta say, I look forward to having Jake in my class in three years.