Community Kids

"OBEY" --- A small word with a deep significance! We try to teach our chilren the importance of obeying from the time they are very young. As we grow up and deepen our relationship we the Lord, we begin to understand how important obedience is in our spiritual walk. I see so many parallels between the two ---- my children's obedience toward me and my obedience to my Heaveny Father.

One of the many parallels I see is how the obedience of my children makes me happy and proud. When I tell them to do something and they promptly obey, my heart is filled with joy and I think to myself, "I must be doing SOMETHING right!" I believe that as I obey my Heavenly Father, that He also senses immense joy when I step out in faith and obey His prompting, His directions, His correction. I desire to for Him to be proud of me and my prompt response to His voice.

Oftentimes what we are called to do as Christians (and missionaries!) doesn't make sense to the world. But, if the Lord is calling us to do something, it's time to step out and OBEY and trust HIM with the outcome.

One of the ways we can be obedient is by sharing Christ with others. As we were thinking about ways to do this, a summer Vacation Bible School (VBS) was brought up. I was thrilled when missionary Kim Benner mentioned it to me, for I had been thinking about it but knew it required too much for me to do on my own.

Our vision at Taylor Community Center is to reach out to the COMMUNITY around us. That means it won't always be pretty. Rather, it will be a step of faith as we invite those who don't know Jesus, those who are sometimes hard to love, those who have no foundation of morals and values, to come and participate in a variety of activies.

As we prepared for VBS, we decorated, found puppet skits, selected songs and Bible stories, created menus, bought craft supplies, requested donations, organized the rotations, and recruited help, our prayer was that GOD would bring the kids he wanted to be there. From a human perspective, we desire numbers. Everyone always asks, "How many kids came?" and it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that without a huge number of kids, the VBS is a failure. My desire was that God was shown to the kids through our actions and through His Word --- regardless of whether there were 100 children or 1 child present.

Did we have huge numbers? Nope. In fact, we had about 30 kids total throughout they week, but they never seemed to all arive all on the same night! But, for us, this was a huge victory! You see, about 1/3 of the kids who participated in VBS were from our community and weren't from Christian families. For those kids, this was possibly the first time they've heard the Gospel! What a tremendous blessing to see these kids show up and get excited about VBS!

The Word was preached. Seeds were planted. There is still a lot of work to be done. Will you continue to pray for Gerson and me as we begin to plan Fall ministries? One of the things we announced at VBS is that we will be having a Bible Club for kids once a week starting in September. The kids were excited, as were the parents! Pray as we prepare for this ministry. Pray the word gets out into the community that we are a safe place for their children. Pray that we will remain obedient to our Savior, in ALL we do. And pray that God will place people in the lives of these children and their families to water the seeds while we are in Bolivia for most of the remaining part of the summer. (That's for another blog!)