(Continued from last week.) Jessie’s Uncle Robert had lost his job, but he found a new job in the same city where Jessie and her family lived. 

Then one day Jessie’s mom noticed a house on their street that was for sale. She called Aunt Angela and told her about it and sent her pictures. 

A couple of weeks later, Jessie and Justin were outside playing when Jessie’s mom came running out the door! “Yippeee!” she squealed. “Come with me!” 

The kids ran after Jessie’s mom as she went down the sidewalk. They stopped at the house with the for sale sign on it. Only this time there was another sign with big letters. “What does that say?” asked Jessie. 

“It says, ‘Sold,’” Jessie’s mom replied as she jumped up and down and clapped her hands. Jessie and Justin giggled at her. 

“But Auntie Bev, doesn’t that mean someone bought it?” asked Justin. 

“It sure does!” said Jessie’s mom. “And guess who bought it!” 

Jessie saw how excited her mom was. Could it be? Were Uncle Robert and Aunt Angela going to move here? That would be super-duper! 

Jessie took a guess, “Aunt Angela and Uncle Robert?” 

“Yes! You’re right. They’re going to be moving into this house in just a couple of weeks. Isn’t that exciting?” Jessie’s mom asked. 

“Yeah! I can hardly wait. Hurray!” said Jessie. 

“And you’ll be able to meet my cousins, Justin. Their names are Emily and Jeremy. I’ve only played with them two times in my whole life, but now we can play with them every day.” 

“That will be fun, Jessie. Now I’m getting excited, too!” exclaimed Justin. 

Five hundred miles away, Aunt Angela was busy packing all the kitchen things into boxes: plates, bowls, cups, forks, knives, spoons. 

Her daughter, Emily, came into the kitchen. “Mommy,” she said, “I finished packing all my stuffed animals and dolls.” 

“Good job, Emily. Will you see how your brother is doing?” asked her mom. 

“Okay!” Emily ran to her brother’s room. “Jeremy, Mommy wants me to check on you. How are you doing?” she asked. 

“Go ‘way,” he replied. Jeremy sniffled and wiped his eyes. Then he closed the door so Emily wouldn’t stare at him. 

Emily ran back to her mom in the kitchen. “Mommy, Jeremy’s crying.” 

“He’s what? Oh, dear,” said Emily’s mom. “Well, Emily, why don’t you put all these plastic bowls into the box for me? I’ll go and find out what’s wrong.” 

She went down the hall to Jeremy’s room and knocked on the door. “Jeremy, may I come in, please?” 

“Yeah,” said Jeremy as he sniffed. 

“What’s the matter? Why are you crying?” His mom sat down on the bed and pulled him close. 

“I’m scared,” Jeremy answered. “I don’t know anybody at the new house. I don’t want to go.” 

“Well, you know Jessie, your cousin, and Auntie Bev and Uncle Dave,” Mom replied. 

“Yeah, sorta. I don’t really remember them. 

Besides, I’ll have to leave my soccer friends. And what if I can’t find any new friends?” 

Tears streamed down Jeremy’s cheeks, and he couldn’t stop them. His mom gave him a big hug. Then she asked him a question, “Jeremy, 

remember when Daddy and I took you to your very first soccer practice?” 

Jeremy nodded, “Yeah. I was scared.” 

“Do you remember who I told you
about from 

the Bible?” 

“Yeah, Abraham! You told me how
God told to before.” him to move to a place he never went
“That’s right. Did Abraham do it?”
“Yeah. He obeyed God and moved
to a new 

place.” 

“Yes. Remember, Abraham might have been
a little scared, but he trusted God. Daddy and I are trusting God to lead us to the right place, too. Don’t forget, Abraham was a person just like you and me. He loved God, and so do you. So do you think God will take care of you as you move to a new place, too?” 

“I guess so,” Jeremy admitted as he started to smile. “Maybe I can even find a new soccer team.” 

“Maybe, but we won’t know until we get there, will we? So we need to get packing, okay?” She gave Jeremy another quick hug. 

“Okay, Mom,” said Jeremy as he got up and started putting his socks in a box. 

Finally, moving day came. Everything was loaded into a huge truck. Jeremy and Emily said good-bye to their friends and climbed into the car and waved as they drove away. 

The trip was a lot of fun. They drove for three days. They colored in their new coloring books and listened to stories. One day they stopped to visit an aquarium, and every night they slept in a different hotel. 

On Saturday morning, they turned the last corner and drove down the street past Jessie’s 

house. They turned into the driveway of the creamy yellow house with big brown shutters. 

“Hey, look! The big brown things by the windows look like giant chocolate bars!” said Emily. 

“Those are called shutters. They’re just decorations. But they do look like chocolate, don’t they?” said her dad. 

They all got out of the car and stretched. “We’re finally here. Our new home!” exclaimed Mom happily. 

“You’re here!” Jeremy and Emily turned around to see Auntie Bev and Uncle Dave hugging their mom and dad. Then they saw two kids running toward them. 

“Jessie!” squealed Emily. 

“Emily!” squealed Jessie. 

Justin and Jeremy smiled at each other and shrugged at the same time. They were both thinking how silly the girls looked trying to hug each other while they jumped up and down. 

“Are you Jeremy?” asked Justin. 

“Yep.” 

“I’m Justin,” he said with a grin. 

“Check out the size of the yard, kids,” said Jessie’s dad. 

“It’s big enough to play soccer!” said Justin. 

“Perfect! I like our new house,” Jeremy said. 

“Me, too!” Emily agreed. “The shutters look like—“ 

“Giant chocolate bars!” said Jessie and Emily at the same time. All the kids laughed. 

“Thank you, God,” Jeremy prayed. “I think I’m going to like it here with my new friends, in this house with the giant chocolate bars.” 

Ding-dong! 

“Justin, see who’s at the door, please!” Justin’s mom shouted. She was in the kitchen taking fresh, hot cookies out of the oven. 

“It’s Matt,” he called back to his mom as he opened the door. 

“Hi, Justin,” said Matt. “I guess I’m supposed to be over here today. My mom said so.” 

“Oh, okay,” said Justin as he led the way to the kitchen. 

“Well, hello there Matt,” Mom greeted him. 

“Hi,” Matt replied as he gazed at the cookies on the counter. “Can I have one of those? Please?” 

“Not right now. Maybe later, okay? I have to make sure I’ve got enough,” Mom explained. 

“Let’s go play trucks in the sandbox, Matt,” suggested Justin. 

“All right, but I’m sure hungry for a cookie,” Matt hinted, hoping Justin’s mom would give him one. But she didn’t even hear him. She was too busy counting all the cookies. 

“. . . 32, 33, 34. I’ll call you in for lunch in a little bit,” she said as the boys went out the back door. 

Justin opened up the sandbox and stepped in. The two boys played with dump trucks until Mom called from the kitchen window, “Come in for lunch, boys!” 

“Hey, maybe we can have cookies for lunch,” said Matt as they went inside. 

While the boys ate their sandwiches, Justin’s 

mom bustled around the kitchen, putting cookie dough on the pans and sliding them into the oven. The whole countertop was piled with cookies. 

“How come you’re making so many cookies, Mom?” asked Justin. He had never seen so many cookies before. 

“Oh, these are for the bake sale at church.” 

Just then, they heard Ellie’s tiny voice calling from her room, “Mommy, up now!” 

Mom set the timer on the oven. Then went to get Ellie up from her nap. 

“Hey!” Matt whispered. “Now’s our chance.” 

“Huh?” said Justin. “What do you mean?” 

“Now we can grab some cookies while your mom is gone,” Matt explained. 

“But she said they were for the bake sale,” Justin argued. “Besides, we need to ask before we take
a cookie.” 

“She said we could have some later,” Matt said as he got up and tiptoed over to the counter. He reached toward a pile of chocolate chip cookies. 

Buuuuzzzz! The oven timer made Matt jump. “Whoa! That scared me,” he laughed. Justin didn’t laugh. He stared hard at Matt as he finished eating his banana. 

Justin’s mom hurried into the kitchen to turn off the buzzer and grab the cookies out of the oven. “Phew! That’s the last of them—finally,” she said. 

Justin put his dishes in the sink and headed out the back door. “Come on, Matt, let’s go back outside,” he said. He grabbed a ball and bounced it on the back sidewalk waiting for Matt to come out. 

After a while Matt came bounding out the back door shouting, “Hey, Justin! You can come and get some cookies now.” 

“Really? Great!” Justin went inside expecting to 

see his mom with a plate of cookies for them. But his mom wasn’t even in the kitchen. “Did my mom say we could have some cookies?” he asked Matt. 

“Uh, yeah. Sure she did,” said Matt as he grabbed a cookie and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. 

Justin thought for a minute. Something didn’t seem right. Maybe he should go find his mom and ask. On the other hand, Matt said she told him it was okay. Mom was really busy today, and he didn’t want to bother her. Besides, the cookies looked so good. And there were so many of them, she probably didn’t need them all. 

“Here.” Matt held out a warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie to Justin. Justin took it and bit into it. Mmmm . . . the cookie practically melted in his mouth! The boys stood by the cookies, munching one after another. 

“Justin!!” They turned to see Mom standing in the doorway with a big frown on her face. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked in an angry voice. 

Suddenly, the cookie Justin was eating didn’t taste so good anymore. “Matt said you told him we could have some cookies,” he said. 

“I said no such thing. I told you these are for the bake sale. I have to have exactly 12 dozen cookies,” she said. “Now I don’t have enough. Justin, I want you to go to your room, and Matt go into the living room and stay there until I tell you. I have to count these again.” 

Justin waited in his room for a long time. Finally, his dad walked in with a serious face. Justin felt awful. He told his dad what had happened. He didn’t mean to disobey. Justin knew that he should have asked Mom to make sure it was okay to have a cookie. But they looked so good, and if he had asked Mom, she might have said no. Instead, he chose to just take some. 

“And that was the wrong choice to make, wasn’t it?” asked Dad. 

“Yes, Sir,” said Justin, “but they looked so good.” 

“Well, first of all, I think you need to apologize to your mom,” Dad said. “And since she has to 

take extra time to make another batch of cookies, you will need to help her by taking care of some extra chores around the house. Oh, and no more cookies either.” 

“Okay,” Justin replied. He didn’t even want any more cookies. He felt sick to his stomach. 

Justin trudged downstairs. He walked past Matt, who was holding his stomach—he wasn’t feeling too well either. Matt sat in the kitchen watching Ellie—that was his job so Justin’s mom could make more cookie dough. 

Justin went over to his mom and told her he was really sorry. She forgave him and gave him a hug. Then Justin grabbed the feather duster and started dusting the shelves in the living room. Mom didn’t have time to dust and sweep today; she had to get more cookies baked in a hurry so she could get them to the bake sale on time. 

It took Justin a long time to finish dusting everything and sweeping the floor. Matt’s mom came and picked him up before they got a chance to play trucks again. 

Later that evening, Justin’s mom came home from the bake sale. She gave Justin a hug and said, “Thank you for your help with the chores. The house looks very nice.” Then she took out a brown paper bag with something big and round in it. “I even brought you something from the bake sale,” she said and handed the bag to Justin. 

Justin opened the bag carefully. He reached into the bag and pulled out a giant chocolate chip cookie! 

Mom and Dad laughed as Justin made a face and said, “No, thank you! I think I had enough cookies for one day.”

Clunk. Crash! 

“What was that?” asked Jessie’s mom. 

Jessie ran into the kitchen to see what was making all the noise. Oh no! Freckles was
up on the counter—and he was eating the banana bread! 

“Freckles, no! Stop!” shouted Jessie. 

Freckles stopped and stared at Jessie. He took one more bite, licked his lips, and then calmly jumped down off the counter and walked away. 

Mom looked at the loaf of banana bread she had just baked. “Now just look at this mess. What a waste! I hope it doesn’t make him sick,” she said as she threw the half-eaten loaf into the garbage. 

“Freckles was a bad kitty! What should we do?” Jessie asked. 

“I think Freckles needs some discipline to keep him from getting on the counter anymore.” 

“Discipline? Like spank him?” asked Jessie. 

“No,” Mom chuckled. “I don’t think spanking him will help. But I have read that cats don’t like to get water sprayed in their face.” 

Mom went into the laundry room. When she came back, she had a plastic bottle in her hand. She filled it with water and screwed on the top. “Here, try using this.” She handed 

the spray bottle to Jessie. “Whenever Freckles jumps on the counter, spray his face with this water until he gets down.” 

“Okay. I’ll try,” said Jessie. 

Jessie and her mom went back into the living room to finish reading their story. After a while, Jessie heard another clunking noise in the kitchen. She raced into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle. Sploosh, sploosh! Jessie sprayed two direct shots in Freckles’ face. Freckles jumped back down to the floor and shook his head. He looked up at Jessie with surprise then sat down and wiped his face with his paw. 

“Hooray, it worked! Now stay down from there, silly cat,” she said. 

Freckles got up and wandered off to find a good napping spot in the sunshine. 

There was a knock at the back door. Jessie’s mom answered it. “Hi Justin, how are you?” she asked. 

“Oh, I’m okay. I still have a stomachache, though,” Justin replied. 

“A stomachache. Are you sick?” asked Jessie. 

“No, not really. I just ate too many cookies yesterday,” explained Justin. 

“That’s right. Your mom said she was baking a bunch of cookies for the church bake sale,” said Jessie’s mom. 

“Yep,” said Justin. “But I got in trouble ‘cause I ate some of them when I wasn’t s’posed to.” 

“Uh oh! Why’d you do that?” 

Justin explained what had happened yesterday when he should have asked his mom if it was okay to eat cookies. But he chose to just go ahead and eat them instead— and he ate way too many! 

“Wow! Was your mom mad? Did you get spanked?” Jessie asked. 

“My mom was really mad. But I didn’t get spanked. I had to do chores for her because she had to make another batch of cookies really fast. So I had to dust and sweep the floors.” 

“Well, that sounds like good discipline,” said Jessie’s mom. 

“What do you mean, Auntie Bev?” asked Justin. 

“I mean that’s a good way to discipline somebody,” Jessie’s mom explained. 

“I thought disci-dips-dis-i-pline was just spanking when we do something wrong,” said Justin. 

“No, not always. Discipline is like training or teaching someone to do the right thing. God disciplines us. He punishes us when we do things that are wrong to teach us to make right choices so we don’t keep on sinning.” 

“I don’t get it,” said Jessie. “I thought Jesus forgave our sins already so we don’t have to be punished.” 

“That’s true, Jessie,” Mom replied. “When we put our trust in Jesus, He forgives us. But we still sin. And God teaches us not to sin by disciplining us.” 

“Like how I’m disciplining Freckles?” asked Jessie. 

“You’re what?” asked Justin. 

“I’m disciplining Freckles. He got on the kitchen counter and ate our banana bread. 

Mom had to throw it away, and now he might get sick.” 

“So, you spanked Freckles?” asked Justin. 

“No, silly. That’s what I asked, too. But you don’t spank a cat,” Jessie laughed. 

“Then what do you do?” asked Justin. 

Suddenly there was a clunking noise from the counter behind them. Jessie said, “I’ll show you!” as she grabbed the spray bottle again. 

Justin watched as Jessie sprayed water into Freckles’ furry face. The cat sputtered and jumped quickly off the counter. He gave Jessie a look as if to say, “That wasn’t very nice,” and wiped the water off his face with a paw. 

“See, I’m teaching him,” Jessie said. “If I spray him whenever he jumps on the counter, then he won’t want to get up there anymore.” 

“I get it,” said Justin. “We have to be punished when we do the wrong things so we won’t want to do them anymore. 

“That’s right,” Jessie’s mom agreed. “When we’re punished for something, it should remind us not to do that same thing ever again. That’s all part of discipline.” 

“So I had to do extra chores so I would remember not to eat cookies without asking first.” 

“Mm hmm. You’ll remember what happened and make sure to ask next time, right?” 

“Yeah. I will, Auntie Bev.” 

Clunk, clunk. “Now if I can just get Freckles to remember, too!” said Jessie as she sprayed water at Freckles—AGAIN. 

“Dad! Dad!” Justin shouted as he ran into the house. “Look what I just got!” 

“Wow! That’s really neat, Justin. A model plane. Very nice.” 

“I’m going to go put it together right now. Will you help me, please?” 

“Oh, I’d love to help, Son, but I need to get outside and mow the lawn before it rains,” Dad replied as he put on his work boots. 

“Okay,” Justin said with a frown. “After that?” 

“We’ll see,” said Dad with a smile. 

Justin went into the family room and sat down at the little table. He opened up the package and looked at the instructions. “I can’t even read most of these words,” he thought. “Guess I better wait for Dad.” 

After a while, dinner was ready, then they would leave for kids’ club at church. Justin liked kids’ club, but he knew he always had to go right to bed when they got home. So he wouldn’t be able to work on his plane at all tonight! 

“Can you help me build my plane tomorrow?” Justin asked Dad during dinner. 

“I’ve got other things I need to finish up tomorrow after I get home from work. But how about if we plan to do it on Friday?” suggested Dad as he got up from his chair. He found a red pen and wrote on the calendar “build model plane” in the Friday square. “How’s that?” he asked Justin. 

Justin tried to smile, but he really, really wanted to build his plane sooner than Friday. Friday was 

two days away. “All right,” Justin sighed as he went to grab his Bible for church. 

The next morning Justin tromped down the stairs—thunk, thunk, thunk. He felt grumpy today since he knew he couldn’t build his plane. After breakfast, Jessie came over to play, but Justin didn’t 

really feel much like playing games—he wanted to build his model plane. Then he thought he could at least show the picture of it to Jessie. 

“Come here, Jessie,” he said as he led the way into the family room. “See what I’m going to build?” He showed her the picture on the box then pulled out the instruction book. 

“Cool! You’re going to build that? Will it really fly?” Jessie asked. 

“No, it’s just a model that sits on the shelf,” Justin explained. 

“How come you haven’t put it together yet?” asked Jessie as she picked up the instruction book. 

“Well, I have to wait for Dad to help me,” he said. 

“Oh. I thought you just follow the pictures here. See?” Jessie pointed to the pictures in the instruction book. 

“Jessie!” Justin’s mom came to the door. “Your mom said it’s time for you to go home.” 

“Okay! See ya, Justin.” Jessie waved as she headed out of the family room. 

Justin looked at the pictures in the instruction book again. “Hmmm, maybe I can do this myself,” he thought. 

He dumped all the pieces out on the table. “This must be the propeller, and these are wings.” 

Justin started gluing different pieces together. It was kind of hard not to make a mess. The glue was very sticky. He worked and worked until, finally, he stuck the last piece, the tail, onto the end of the plane. 

“There!” he said as he looked it over. “Now it just has to dry for a while.” Justin carefully set the model up on a shelf so Ellie wouldn’t be able to reach it. Then he went outside to play ball. He was proud of himself for figuring out how to put the plane together without any help. 

Jessie came back over for a little while. “Guess what!” Justin said. 

“What?” Jessie replied. 

“I built my plane all by myself! I just followed the pictures like you said.” 

“Really? Let me see it!” 

The two friends ran inside to the family room to look at Justin’s plane. Justin carefully took it down from the shelf. As he set it down on the table, one of the wheels fell off—clunk! 

“Oops. I guess the glue isn’t all dry,” he said as he tried to stick the wheel back into place. 

“I don’t know, Justin,” said Jessie as she looked the plane over. “I think this piece might go over there instead.” Jessie touched the piece she was talking about—clunk—it fell off, too! 

“Jessie, don’t touch it!” Justin hissed. “You’re going to break it. It has to dry first.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jessie apologized. “But I thought the spinning thing went up here at the very front.” 

“That’s called a propeller. And it goes right here where I put it,” Justin insisted. He had worked really hard on his plane and didn’t want Jessie to talk about it that way or break it. 

“Hi, kids! How’s it going?” Justin’s dad asked as he walked into the room. He stopped at the table and looked down at the plane Justin had put together. “Oh, I see you decided to build it yourself.” 

“Yeah! See? I did it all by myself!” Justin picked up the model plane to show his dad. But suddenly—clunk—there went the propeller again. Clack—there went a wing. Clunk, clunk—now the other wing AND the tail! 

Jessie stood back and watched as Justin tried
to keep his model from falling to pieces. She could tell he was getting upset. He had tears puddling up 

in his eyes. “Um, I’m going home now, bye!” she said as she jogged out of the room. She didn’t want to see Justin cry. 

As another piece of the airplane fell off, Justin did start to cry. Dad sat down, and Justin crawled up on his lap for a hug. “Justin, I’m really sorry the plane came apart,” he whispered. “But why didn’t you wait for me? I was planning to help you with it. We can still put it back together tomorrow after I get home from work.” 

Justin sat back. He felt so embarrassed and mad at himself for not waiting for Dad to help him. “You’ll still help me?” Justin sniffled. 

“Of course I will,” Dad replied, “but you need to wait for me, okay?” 

Justin nodded and wiped his eyes. He went back to the table and picked up all the little pieces of the model and put them back in the box to wait for tomorrow. 

The next afternoon, Dad surprised Justin by coming home early from work. Now they could build the model plane together! 

The two of them worked side by side. Dad helped Justin figure out where all the pieces were really supposed to go. Justin held the pieces while his dad glued them on. When it was all finished, they sat back and smiled. 

“Good job, Justin!” said Dad. “Thanks for letting me help you. I had fun.” 

Justin grinned. As he looked closely at his beautiful plane, he noticed the propeller. “Hmmm, that’s funny,” he said. 

“What’s so funny?” asked Dad. 

Justin laughed and pointed at the propeller. “Jessie was right; the spinning thing DOES go there.”