We had a great week of camp last week! The kids were from a Christian school, and we were all shocked at how well behaved and attentive they were. We only had about 50 kids each day, which was a lot more manageable than the 200 we had the week before! We were able to pour into them more and get to know them better. I signed up with a few other girls to handle the preschool, but no preschool kids showed up all week, so I ended up helping with rec again. Let’s just say that I think we as rec leaders had just as much if not more fun thinking of games and “testing them out” as the kids did playing them!
So, Eric (the leader of the “Agapetos” team from the January squad) came up to me the second to last day of camp and said that he was praying about the wrap up time that we have every day with all the kids and God put my name on his mind. He asked if I would run it. I said no problem. He told me the topic for that day was “God Protects”. Now, sad to say, but normally I would have taken about 5 minutes, reached into my children’s program tool belt, so to speak, and pulled out a little talk that would work well. But something stopped me from resorting to routine yet again. I had a feeling God wanted to say something to me about this one.
I went off for awhile to pray, and asked God what He would say to these kids if He could physically stand in front of them. And then I heard it. He said “Tell them I see them.” Just that one sentence. I wasn’t satisfied, so I asked for a bit more. He answered, “Tell them I see them at night.” Again I didn’t feel like I was fully understanding what He meant. Then, once I just sat silently and waited, God explained Himself. He told me that the kids have nightmares and are terrorized at night. He said that they are tormented by the devil and fear and He wanted it to stop. The daily lesson at camp was that God protects, and God Himself was telling me that He was there to protect these children from the enemy. He was very serious, almost fierce about what He was telling me. It was not to be shrugged off or watered down. I was to bring His word to the ones He wanted desperately to protect.
I stood in front of the kids and told them that I used to suffer from really bad nightmares and fear of the dark when I was little. I talked to them about how awesome and powerful God is and how He is bigger than the enemy. Then I asked the question that I wasn’t sure would really even yield a response. I asked the kids who had bad dreams or who were scared at night to come up for prayer. Almost all of them came forward. I knew I had heard the Lord, but I don’t think I was ready for what some of the kids said. A lot of them heard voices every night, and they knew it was the devil scaring them. It’s crazy how spiritually sensitive children in
Africa are, even as young as 5 and 6 year olds. A lot of their families are still involved in ancestry worship and witchcraft. These kids were not laughing or joking around when they came forward…they wanted God’s protection. We prayed for them individually, and then as a group. God even spoke to Theresa, the missionary lady that we have been working with, and said that we were the spiritual covering for those kids while we were there and we needed to fight for them in prayer. We taught them to say the name of Jesus when they were afraid and that every demon would have to leave.
Again, I have been humbled. I went into the “wrap up” time thinking that I could just wing it, after all, it was just talking to kids for about 5 minutes. It wasn’t going to be life-changing,
I could just have them recite the memory verse and be done with it. How many times do we underestimate what God wants to do? He wanted His babies to know that He saw them being afraid at night and He’s not ok with that. He is their Protector. The bad dreams of a little 6 year old African girl matter to the Lord, so much that He would stop me in my tracks and make me understand His love for them.
We came back the next day to hear the testimonies of many of the kids who said that
for the first time they can remember, they slept peacefully through the night. I would love to have seen the angels God placed in those bedrooms! My God Protects and He cares about the things we would otherwise overlook.
