What is the theme?
What will we teach?
Will it be to to easy/ to hard?
These are all questions that we asked as we prepared for the English camp that we came to Rivne to help teach. This month has been a lot of preparation time, but it has been well worth it. Today our English camp ended, and tomorrow we will go out of the city of a sort of "English camp retreat". Part of our preparation was to hand out flyers around the city. We pasted up many flyers around the city last week, handed out small flyers and waited expectantly on The Lord to bring the right people.
As we were preparing for this week a passage that I had been reading in the Matthew stood out to me:
Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” (Matthew 13:3-10 NIV)
“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13: 21-23 NIV
We "sowed the seeds" and waited expectantly on The Lord. This week many students (between 50 and 70) came to class each day. Some only once or twice, others attended all week. They come from all different backgrounds and during the week through our lessons, and testimonies they all heard the same truth of the Bible, yet not all of them will receive it. Some already know the truth and we hope they have been encouraged to grow in their faith. Other's have never heard about Jesus in this way and want to know more. Other's have heard but will not receive and believe as the passage says.
I believe that in our lessons and all that we have shared we have honored God and now as we get ready to move on you can join me in praying for the students who attended the camp. Pray that they will continue to learn English if they so desire, but most importantly that they will grow in their knowledge of who Jesus is, and who HE is to them.
(our class for the week)
