lions, and daniel, and Jesus... oh my

this week at church, the kids learned about daniel in the lion's den. this month's theme was 'do the right thing!', and daniel did the right thing by praying to God, even when he wasn't allowed to.

anyhow, i usually ask the kids, when we are in the car going home from church, what they learned in their classes. lily and topher are in different classes, but all the preschool and special needs classes have the same story (as each other, not the same actual story repeated) every week. and since i hang out with the special needs kids at the 11:59 service, i have the inside scoop of what my kids are hearing. chris and i go to the 10:30 service, and then serve at 11:59, so our kids are in church all morning, and hear the story twice. therefore i have great expectations for them to give me some really biblically accurate answers.

so, on sunday, i asked the kids what the story was about. silence.

"was it about a guy named daniel?" i asked them.
"yeah!" they replied in unison.
"was daniel in a den with some chicken?"
"no!"
"giraffes?"
"no!"
"lions?"
"Yeah!!!" they were pretty excited to have gotten every question i threw at them correctly. so was i.
"so what happened to daniel? did the lions eat him?" this was a harder question, but i was positive they would get it right. i could practically hear them recite the story word for word from the Bible: "My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight..." (daniel 6:21) but these thoughts were interrupted by a very loud and excited topher...
"the lions ate Jesus!"

silence...

i'm gonna have to talk to topher's teachers next week. that's not the same story i read in my classroom. and hopefully none of the other classes read that either.