It turns out there are three different kinds of giraffes, males can weigh up to 1.8 tons, females carry their babies for 15-18 months, and giraffes have really long tongues. but, in addition to learning about giraffes, I am continually learning about my Father. I am continually learning about boldness that comes directly from Him. Last Friday morning we split into two groups and went to two different primary schools to teach a class from the Bible. I was hoping the classes we would be teaching would be like 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade, but it turned out to be 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. I always feel more comfortable talking to the younger children, and I feel certain that is why I was not with them. I also am feeling more and more called to work with middle school and high school girls when I get home, but this particular class I was with was mostly boys. So God was pretty much putting me in this class that was almost none of the things I was comfortable with. I am getting pretty used to this, though, as it seems to be the theme of the World Race. Teaching this class of 7th graders in the most rustic, impoverished school I have ever seen turned out to be one of the most fun things I have done in Kenya. They taught me a song in English and one in Swahili then I talked to them about obedience and Joshua and about how big God is. Then they asked me questions such as, “what is the capital of America?”, “Did Judas go to Hell?”, “Who was Joshua’s father?”, “is God a spirit or a man?”. Nice, easy questions like that. They then wanted me to teach them a song, so put on the spot, the first song that obviously came to my head was “King of the Jungle.” They loved it and made me promise to teach them another one when I came back. It was so amazing and refreshing to be able to freely talk about God in a public school.
As I said before, we have been going door to door in the neighborhoods around the church to share the gospel and tell people about the church, and many of my teammates have seen people come to Christ as a result. It has been amazing to come back together and hear them say, “we have a new brother and sister in Christ!” Michelle and I have ended up a lot of times in buildings where not many people are home, but cool things have still come out of it. We have gotten to pray over Christians, share the gospel with a muslim lady who wanted to read the 4 spiritual laws for herself again after we left then meet with us again later (so pray for Hanya!), and we also got to play with a group of kids outside one building as we were waiting for the rest of our team. We ended up teaching them duck duck goose (which we realized they didn’t quite grasp when they were chasing the wrong person) and two VBS type songs. I love the little opportunities that God puts in our path that are not planned when we do not expect it. The bottom line is, I love being in Africa and I love being apart of the amazing things God is doing here.
one half the class I taught.
yes, we really kissed giraffes. his name is Patrick. i told you they had long tongues!
