Two added to the Kingdom!!!

One of my requests from the Lord has been to get a children’s church started here. I hadn’t found my place in church here and I really wanted to work with children. Last week our Pastor asked Cameron if he would ask me to do a children’s church this Sunday. OF COURSE was my answer and I have been excited for this day all week. I prepared and got my supplies and brought enough stuff for ten kids. When I walked into church I saw about 25 kids that would be coming to the first children’s church! Whoopsi!! =D Today at church 26 Roma attended the service and when we went into the room for children’s church the Roma sat on one wall and the other children sat opposite of them. I began reading our story of Elisha being fed by the ravens in 1 Kings 17. We learned about King Ahab and the rain not falling due to their worship of false gods and then each child participated in acting out each character in the story. It was amazing to see the children interact and see their laughter overcoming cultural barriers of race. Oh how I love how children can make love the simplicity it is meant to be. Afterwards we divided into discussion groups and the older kids dug deeper into the Word. We talked about Matthew 6 and how God will provide and knows what we need and our need not to worry. Teaching on Matthew 6 was a huge reality check for me because most of the children I was teaching spend time with their parents digging in dumpsters to make ends meet. There was a weight of responsibility teaching something so relevant that I had to check my own self and ask “Do I really believe this?” because I’ve never had to rely on this scripture like the children I am teaching do. Despite that, I could teach Matthew 6 in confidence because I know when we seek God first all of our needs are met!
At the end of our service, the translator was speaking with a boy who was very attentive during all of the teaching. She brought him to me and said “This boy wants to know God and believes in Him. He wants to be saved.” After speaking with the boy and gauging his understanding of what he said he wanted, he and another boy accepted Christ. They made a commitment to study the Word and be discipled and so this Tuesday they will meet with Cameron and begin to study.
Tonight we had our first children’s church at a church plant across town and it too went amazingly well! Only due to the glory of God because He has truly stripped me of anything I was ever confident in! Both churches desire to continue the children’s church and in the next month or two I will start classes for women who want to be trained to take over this ministry so that I can fade out and hand it over to them. The church we attend will begin a Roma service at 9:30 and a Bulgarian service at 10:30. Though this idea still seems foreign to me and I would love to see them all together worshipping as one body, I know that I am the foreigner who has no understanding of culture and will trust God to change hearts in His time and will focus on just simply loving all and following in obedience my One True Amazing God!

Please pray for the two boys who accepted Christ today. They live in a tent community in a field with their family and other Roma. Praise God for the Roma believer amongst them that brings them to church! (FORGIVE me! I have too many names swimming in my head and I am not going to write down names that I’m not sure of! I can’t remember their names right now)

Please pray for their spiritual growth to be strong as they study the Word with Cameron.

Pray for all the other kiddos who are attending children’s church in the morning and at the church plant in the evenings.

Please pray for God to put desires in the hearts of His people to take over this children’s ministry so that it can prosper under their leadership and under the sweetness of their cultural knowledge and language ability that I will never be able to fulfill.

Please pray that each door God opens, we will walk through with discernment, wisdom and NO confidence in ourselves!