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One day when my daughter Azaeleah was 3 years old, she asked her dad, “Papa, was Joseph a shepherd?”

“No, honey. He was a carpenter,” her dad told her.

“Oh, then Mary was a shepherd,” she said.

“No, honey. I don’t think she was one either.”

“Yes she was,” stated Azaeleah matter of factly. “Mary had a little lamb.”

—Sandie Van Dyke

Chad was a new Christian and a new church member. He was eager to serve his church, so he asked his elder what he could do. The elder suggested that he be a greeter. Chad asked what that involved. The elder told him, “You know, shake hands, say ‘Howdy,’ introduce yourself.” So Chad said, “You mean I’d be doing Howdy duty?”

—Dot Besteman

The church in which my nephew and family are members was commemorating the last week of Christ’s life on earth, part of their Lenten observance. They were doing a dramatization of the events of that week. My nephew helped with the production, and one of his tasks was to provide the props that were needed. His little son, Jacob, sat with his mother during the program. While the people up front were acting out the Last Supper, Jacob poked his mother and asked, “Why is Jesus washing that man’s feet in our popcorn bowl?”

—Marilyn Piebenga

A second-grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, “Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today.”

More than a little surprised, the grandmother tried to keep her cool. “That’s interesting,” she said. “How do you make babies?”

“It’s simple,” replied the girl. “You just change the y to i and add es.”

—George Vander Weit

An effusive lady brought a litter of golden retriever puppies to a veterinary clinic for inoculations. She loved them so much, she couldn’t stop remarking about their cute habits.

As the look-alike pups squirmed over and under one another in their box, the vet realized it would be difficult to tell the treated ones from the rest. So he turned on the faucet and moistened each dog’s head when he had finished.

After the fourth puppy he noticed his hitherto talkative client had grown silent. As he sprinkled the last pup’s head, the woman leaned forward and whispered, “I never realized they had to be baptized.”

—John Veltkamp