Nothing like an eight-year-old kid to put you in your place.

At Neil’s request, I was drawing people tonight, Tuesday, at the Delta neighborhood monthly meeting. I sketched people of all ages before, during, and after the session at which a police officer responded to questions about neighborhood safety. At one point, I was surrounded by a group of children from 8 to perhaps 12, basically entertaining them quietly in the rear of the room while the meeting went on.

Eight-year-old Matthew told me he loves to draw. “While you’re not doing anything,” he said, “can you teach me to cartoon?” Yeah, right. It takes years, kid. I gave him a pen and some paper, and sketched out a horse for him.

“Look at that,” he said. “I could never draw a horse. And here some old guy draws me a horse.”

I’m still smiling at that.

Let’s see. He’s 8 and I’m 67. I am an old guy to him. Had this happened to me when I was 8, that “old guy” would have been born in 1881. That qualifies as old. It just depends on your perspective.

I had a wonderful serendipity today. Attending a luncheon for pastors at Victory Fellowship, Pastor Dennis Watson said, “Joe, do you know Ralph Neighbour?” We stood there gazing at each other for the first time in 30 years. “How you’ve changed,” he said. “You haven’t,” I said, winning the oneupsmanship contest. His sweet wife Ruthie gave me a big hug. Ralph said, “I’m 78.”

Ralph Neighbour is a hero in the Kingdom of God on a number of counts. A generation ago, he began a cell group church movement in the Houston area, then he and Ruthie served Southern Baptists as missionaries in Singapore. After that, they went global. Readers of a “certain age” will recall Ralph’s earlier books, including “This Gift is Mine,” “The Seven Last Words of the Church,” and “Future Church.” He wrote the Survival Kit which Southern Baptists have used for decades, and more recently followed it up with one called the “Arrival Kit,” for new believers.

His more recent books include “Shepherd’s Guidebook,” and “Where Do We Go From Here? A Guidebook for the Cell Group Church.”

In 1977, while pastoring the First Baptist Church of Columbus, Mississippi, I noticed in “The Commission” magazine, the journal of our denomination’s International Mission Board, that a cartoonist was needed for Singapore. Missionaries wanted to produce an evangelistic comic book to appeal to the teenagers. All the bells went off when I read that. An hour later, Margaret called from home. “Joe, ‘The Commission’ says they need a cartoonist in Singapore.”

That’s how it happened that I spent two weeks in that island nation paradise with Ralph Neighbour, other missionaries, and a group of Chinese believers, coming up with a script for “Wai Kong, Singapore Boy,” a full-color, full-length comic book aimed at the youth of that country.

Originally, Ralph had planned to print the comic in black and white himself. I assured him my church would be pleased to pay for its printing in full color. “Let’s do it up right,” I said. And lived to regret those words.

Drawing and coloring all the pages turned out to be a job and a half once I returned home. For weeks, we had cels strung on clotheslines in our dining room, and a constant stream of church volunteers in and out, helping me hand color each tiny drawing on the reverse side, using a light box.

The church members were so supportive when we asked for the $3,000 to print the comic, we had to set a limit of $25 each on contributions so everyone would have a part. Ralph had 10,000 copies printed and sold them on the newsstands of Singapore for a quarter (others cost a dollar; we just charged enough to pay the seller’s profit). I think the churches gave away all that were left over. It remains the only comic book I ever drew. Ralph sent us a box of them which we gave away to various church leaders. These days, I have one copy left.

In the 1990s, when Ralph was turning out materials for the cell group churches in Asia, he asked me to illustrate them, which I was glad to do. We did everything by mail and the phone. One day he said, “Joe, the booklets you are illustrating today, a year from now there will be one million of them all over Asia.”

Today, Ralph said, “That number was low. Those booklets are everywhere, in many many countries.”

And now, he’s working on another book, one with 365 devotionals on a certain theme. “I’ll need some cartoons in it,” he said. “Delighted,” I responded. “Just tell me what you need.”

We did what you do when you’ve been out of touch for so long, caught each other up on our lives. My cancer in 2004 and his near-fatal car wreck in South Mississippi in 1997, for starters.

Reading the above, I have not begun to convey what a precious man of God and treasure of a human being he is. But I cannot write well enough to put it into words any better.

Those who read Time magazine’s take on the precarious situation our city is facing in this hurricane season, with its indictment of the U.S.Corps of Engineers, will be interested in the take of the Times-Picayune’s columnist Jarvis DeBerry this morning. He said, “Flawed or not, the Corps is all we’ve got.”

And that’s the hard truth of it. No other government entity has the responsibility, money, or capability to safeguard this city from storms and floods. Only the Corps. We are at their mercy.

But not entirely. Saying our situation is “precarious” makes a good point. The root of that word is surprising, and will make some preacher a great illustration for next Sunday. I’m reading John T. Shipley’s “Dictionary of Word Origins.” He says the Latin “precari” means “prayer,” and the suffix “osus” means “full of.” Hence, the person in a precarious situation is literally filled with prayer.

In the meeting at Victory Fellowship today, speaker after speaker called the city to prayer. Several day long times of prayer and fasting have been scheduled by various groups in the next few weeks.

We are most dependent on the Lord of Heaven and Earth, our Heavenly Father, to intervene and save this city.

We now know we cannot put it together again by ourselves.

Humpty Dumpty had nothing on this city.