“Say Hello to Halim!” Friend, June 2019
Say Hello to Halim!
The author lives in Idaho, USA.
“Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).
Illustrations by Adam Koford
Just after the bell rang, Marcus noticed a new boy standing at the front of the room by the teacher.
“Good morning, everyone,” Mrs. Becker said as everyone quieted down. “This is Halim. He is new to our school. In fact, he is new to our country.”
Halim kept looking at the floor as he said hello. Marcus thought his voice sounded kind of different. Mrs. Becker kept talking.
“We are so glad he is here and that he is going to be part of our class. I hope we can all say hello and help him feel welcome.”
As Mrs. Becker showed Halim where to sit, Marcus thought about how nervous he would feel if he had to move to a new country and a new school.
After their morning snack, Mrs. Becker said she had a surprise for the class. Marcus sat up really straight so he could see what she was pulling out of her bag. They were small buckets. She started passing them out to everyone.
“Each of us has an imaginary bucket inside of us,” she said as she handed Marcus a yellow bucket. “People fill our buckets when they do nice things for us. And we fill others’ buckets when we’re nice to them. For example, when your mom gives you a hug, she is filling your bucket. When you say something nice to someone, you are filling their bucket.”
Marcus looked at his best friend, Caleb. He got a yellow bucket too!
“This week, we’ll keep these buckets on our desks so we can write nice notes for each other,” Mrs. Becker said. She folded up a little piece of paper and dropped it in a bucket. “And that will help us remember the imaginary buckets everyone has inside. We want to be kind so that we are bucket fillers.”
Marcus pulled out a piece of paper and thought of the things he could write to Caleb, like that he was good at sports. Then he looked at Halim. His shoulders were kind of bent over, like he was sad.
Marcus wondered if Halim had a best friend where he used to live. It must have been hard to say goodbye and scary to move so far away.
Marcus looked down at the blank piece of paper on his desk. He had an idea, then he wrote:
“Hi, Halim,“
Welcome to our school. If you want, we can play at recess. I will be your friend. I bet Caleb will be your friend too.
“From, Marcus.”
Then he carefully folded the paper up and dropped it in Halim’s bucket. Halim smiled. Marcus felt warm and happy inside. He was glad he could fill Halim’s bucket!