Because we are located in an ethnically diverse area of Wichita, our justice issue for the fall was to focus on the problem of racism. However, after September 11 we needed to narrow our focus. We decided to learn more about Islam. We wanted to meet and get to know our Muslim neighbors and others from Middle Eastern countries.

Some of our Justice-time activities included:

• Making a mural entitled "We All Belong: Appreciate Differences";
• Researching Islam — helpful books:
  The Three Muslim Festivals by Aminah Ibrahim Ali;
  Children Just Like Me by Barbabas and Anabel Kindersley;
  Eyewitness Books: Religion by Myrtle Langley;
  The World's Great Religions, Volume 2; Golden Books Treasury of Prayers from Around the World by Eloise Wilkin.
• Inviting children from Annor, the local Islamic school, for a time of sharing food, culture, and customs;
• Making a prayer pocket quilt in which Muslims and Christians placed written prayers (now hanging in the narthex for others to add their prayers for our world);
• Learning an Islamic greeting dance;
• Eating at a restaurant owned by a Lebanese-American in an effort to show our acceptance of people from the Middle East;
• Reading and discussing Hey Little Ant by Phillip and Hanna Hoose;
• Attending a potluck dialogue time at the nearby Islamic Center.

We took Edie Harris's suggestion (Summer 2001 Covenant Discipleship Quarterly) and introduced Lectio Divina as a way to read Scripture together. As we talked about it in the group each week, the children moved from just writing down a word to journaling and talking about why that word/phrase stood out for them. The Sprouts are now familiar with a new way of reading and meditating on the Scripture. New music added in this session was a Taizé piece, "Come and Fill Our Hearts" that was sung at our closing worship time (#2157, The Faith We Sing).

Linda Youngman is the director of Sprouts at University United Methodist Church, Wichita, Kansas.