“One life to live will soon be passed, what’s done for Christ will surely last.”
Playing games with the kids at Camp Mechta – going great. Hanging out with them – super fun. Communicating with them – better and better everyday. Teaching them Bible lessons – yikes! This was my thought process at the beginning of last week. Sharing the Good News is why I’m here – so why am I getting so much anxiety about actually doing that? I know the devil wants me to be as ineffective as possible, and he was surely attacking me last week. My mind was full of thoughts like ‘i have no experience teaching anything, let alone Bible lessons’, ‘I have no idea what they are saying, what if they are making fun?’, ‘i am not equipped with the qualities to be a teacher’, ‘what if something gets translated wrong and only confuses them more?’, ‘I just want to go home’. I have been a leader for various things, like VBS back home, but always worked in the craft room or game time. So this was beginning to become more and more daunting to me. All I could do was pray, so thats what I did.
The first few lessons were on prayer (ironically), and yesterday we started the book of Daniel. Since my group is so big with such a vast age range, we split up the little kids form the older kids. While the little ones are being taught the lesson, the older ones are in craft. And then we switch. I was super shocked that the little kids acutally sat and listened, which I was not expecting. I thought they would have zero attention span. But they loved the felt board visual aid and they all retained the memory verses so well. When I asked if anyone wanted to close in prayer, one boy named Vanya was the only one to raise his hand the first day. Amidst his Russian words that I could not desifer, I heard “spasiba… something Russian… Americansky” He thanked God for me 🙂 Yesterday for closing prayer, 6 kids raised their hands! And we had them all pray, one after the other. It’s so amazing to actually see God working in their hearts. And at the same time, He was working in mine. He was teaching me as I taught them. I was learning to not put any confidence in my own flesh, but to have confidence in Him alone.
** Side note: The other day when I was teaching the Bible lesson to the younger kids, they were all listening and being well behaved. Then, one boy named Denis (In the picture, he’s the one standing on the bench posing like a model) points dramatically into the woods and yells something at the top of his lungs. All of the sudden, all the kids go running in the woods. I’m so confused. “What happened?” I asked my translator, Olya. “They see a squirrel”… “Is that rare?” …”Yes, pretty rare.” Haha. Who knew? If only they came to College Park, where there are more squirrels than students.**
The older boys are great, but have an attitude that they are too good for anything. I had no idea how the Bible lessons were going to go with them. The lesson book I had was catered to a young audience (pre-school) so I knew I had to tweak it a lot. The last thing I wanted to do was make them feel like babies – they would absouletly hate that. I just prayed for Gods words to be used, not my own. And turns out teaching them was actually really fun. They understood everything I was saying (through the translator that is). The first few days I could tell they were just there to be respectful and polite. But yesterday especailly, they were very interested in the story. I felt the Lord telling me to just have a conversation with them, not teach at them. So I incorporated a lot of questions for them to get some discussion going. My last challege was for them to not just take my word for it, but to read the Bible themselves. When they go home, to read the rest of Daniel, since this was their last lesson day and we only covered chapter 1 (and they leave camp tomorrow). They all nodded, and I’m hoping they actually do. The Word of God is “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12) and “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). If they read it with an open heart, I know God will do marvelous things in their lives.
Everyday I read a notecard that Ben (my sweet, my love) gave me, and one of the things he wrote on it was “One life to live will soon be passed, what’s done for Christ will surely last.” I’m learning that each day is a choice. Basically, to live selfishly or to live in surrender. Living in surrender is not easy, but living for yourself brings pointless exhaustion. I think on this quote that you gave me, Benny, and it changes the way I choose to live. Thank you Booter. Thank you Jesus.
