HOW could I almost forget????

A couple of Sundays ago, we had the most interesting Gospel Meeting I have ever been in.  There were four people present apart from Jill and myself - three of our friends and one contact.  While Jill was speaking, this line of a hymn came to mind, "Above earth's noise and tumult, That still small voice I hear..."  I greatly admired Jill's ability to keep her concentration as she spoke in competition with blaring music outside our little meeting room and also the effort of our listeners to concentrate on the message being shared.  It was no easy task for any of us, I can tell you!  After Jill spoke, we sang a hymn.  During the hymn, a little girl, the daughter of our contact, bounced into the room and joined us.  She sat still for approximately 3.2 seconds, and that was the end of that.  By the time we finished our hymn, her two siblings and another child or two from somewhere had come in.  That was lovely.  We love having children in our meetings.  However, these children had no intention of sitting or listening or allowing anyone else to listen.  They were all over the room, all over the benches and the laps of our listeners.  They were in and out of the building.  They were over and under, around and around.  They talked as they ran, climbed, circled,...verbs fail me.  And the music hadn't stopped. Finally, at one point, when all the children (there were four at this point) were somewhat in the vicinity of the benches, I made the announcement, "I'm going to tell a story to the children."  That got their attention, and I fervently hoped that I could maintain it.  The only story I had was about the Hebrew servant in Ex. 21 who, after having served his master for six years, could choose either to go free on the seventh year or to stay forever with his master.  It wasn't perhaps the story I would have chosen for telling children, but it was all I had, so I charged on trying to make it as interesting as possible to these little minds.  I explained what the position of the servant would have been and how long he would have served.  Six whole years!  To stress this length of time, I addressed the little girl sitting in the front row, whom I estimated to be 5 or 6 years old.  "How old are you?"  Without hesitation or hint of humor, she looked me straight in the eyes and replied, "Thirty."  Everyone roared.  Her mother quickly gave me the correct answer from the second row.  "Five."  I finished up the story and ended the meeting.  It wasn't quite "time" according to the clock, but it was definitely "time!"  Anyway, all the adults seemed to appreciate the meeting, and it gave us an interesting story to tell after the fact.  We'll see what happens next time we go!