…”let the children come to me”.

For the past couple of summers as I’ve worked with the children in Cairo this verse will not leave me.  Jesus says in Luke 18:16-17, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.  Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”  God wants His children.  We are seeing that more and more here.  God is moving in the children!   He truly is.  Within these last couple of months we have had children bring bibles to school regularly to read during their reading time, and then talk to other children about what they are reading.  Children have been asking for a bible.  We had a girl accept Christ during the middle of a worship service and she immediately began speaking in tongues, this was just between her and Jesus, she told us afterwards, not really sure what happened!  Children are more ready to truly study the bible as we’ve seen in  a children’s bible study we’ve had the last couple of weeks.

 It is the children who are ready to hear.

It is the children who are ready to receive and walk out their faith.

It is because the children are ready that God is moving in them.

“…and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6)

The following is what my friend Melissa, a Cairo fifth grade teacher, wrote about one day a couple weeks ago in her classroom.  Remember this is at a public school…

“Ebenezer. December 5, 2007. Bennett prayer.  Stacy prayed for specific things, for specific breakthrough to happen, that God would release things in the school and classroom.  Melissa and Stacy prayed that God’s power would be evident in the classroom. 

The morning at school was surprisingly decent, mood-wise and attitude-wise.   In the afternoon, when Sara came in, the atmosphere began to change.  Students began to get a little more rowdy, began to argue with each other, had a hard time working with each other in teams.  Basically, things weren’t going too well. Melissa takes kids to Gym. 

Meanwhile in the classroom, Sara prays for the atmosphere to change, for God to move and switch things around, where there was loudness for there to be quiet, where there was chaos there to be order.  For peace.  For the Spirit to come. [Enter Holy Spirit…ha ha ha…Spirit was already there ;o)] . 

Dominique and Keenan were beginning to get at each other downstairs on their way back from Gym, they were told they couldn’t come back the next day.  Melissa determined from their attitude that silent reading wasn’t going to happen, so on the way back to the classroom she changed the lesson plan.  Melissa grabbed the Chanukah reading that Ms. Case had given her a copy of earlier that morning.  The class read through the reading.  Keenan asked if the Jewish believed in God.  Melissa explained that they do believe in God but unlike Christians don’t believe in Jesus. Then Dominique raised his hand and asked, “How can they believe in God if they don’t believe in Jesus?”  Then Melissa explained that the Jews were waiting for someone to save them, but did not believe Jesus was that person.  Then Dominique raised his hand again and stated, “I don’t get it.” Melissa asked them, “Okay, who was Jesus, what did He do?”D: He died on a cross.M: Why did He die?D +(several other kids in the class): For our sins.(Carmissa: for our sins….I go to church)M: The Jews believe that he was just another person dying, not dying for our sins for purpose of everlasting life. Do you understand?  D: Not really.M: Think about it.K: Why did they whip Jesus, like in that movie Passion of the Christ, cause it was all gross and stuff? Melissa explained that back at that time they used to hang people and whip them because they had committed a crime.  They used to do it publicly, mockingly, to set an example to others to not do the same thing.   D: (raising hand again) I still don’t understand how they believed in God and not in Jesus. Sara explains how the Jews were waiting for a King.  And how the Old Testament gave them clues to what a King would be like.  But they expected a King with riches and power, Jesus came humble and poor, so they didn’t recognize Him as a King. Sha’da begins to explain a movie she saw about Jesus.Shantasia explains about another movie she saw about Jesus.  She said it was really sad when Jesus died.Davina shares how Jesus died with nails in hand.  The class discussed how they were real nails in His hands.  Discussion bounced between kids and different things they remembered about movies about Jesus or church experience.  Dazhane shares about Tribe of Judah (This is a children’s program we’ve had.) and a time when they did a lesson about blood on the doorpost and how it was icky and she didn’t want to touch it.  Melissa tells the students that the bell is about to ring, and they needed to do their jobs, but that she would love to continue this conversation as they did their jobs.  

 Dominique says to Melissa that this could be their community circle time (This is a time when all the kids and Melissa sit in a circle and their each asked how they are feeling during a day or are asked a question).   M: Yes! This is an awesome community circle time! Children clean. And conversation about God continued. Sara tells Dominique he asks good questions.  He asks again why the Jews didn’t believe.  Sara tries to explain again about prophecy in the Old Testament and the pride of the priests, helping him see that Jesus was a threat to the power of the Jewish priests.    Keenan’s job was to clean off the board, then he wrote “I love Jesus” on the board.  Then Shantasia went up to the board, erase “I”, Keenan got mad.  And she replaced it with “We all” And Keenan was satisfied.   (During this entire time there was order and peace, the class was not out of control or loud at all) Other students went to the board and began to writes praised to God, including “Jesus is da man”. 

Class ends.  Students leave. Sara and Melissa do a happy dance, praise God, and pray. 

Amen Lord.   Amen.”

Right after this some of her children came to our bible study ready to talk about what they were just talking about in school.  School had prepared them for a bible study!  This was on the first Wednesday that we started again to have a regular time to pray at this school.  The next Wednesday they had another conversation about God in the classroom.  Today, Melissa is allowing Sara to share the gospel with the whole class since there have been so many questions.  She is sharing the “historical perspective” of course! 😉  God paves a way for His Word to go forth…

We give Him all the praise for all that has been taking place!  Please pray with us for the children of Cairo.