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The Fruit of the Spirit

"But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  Against such things there is no law."  Galatians 5:22-23.

At Reading Club we have a very special time that we call "Family Time".  During these precious minutes we learn and grow as individuals and as a group.  One of the topics we have focused on during this time is the Fruit of the Spirit. What a blessing it is to be able to tell one of the kids that you just witnessed them displaying love, kindness, or goodness, and yes, even self control.  

These two plus hours with the children at Reading Club have seen me frustrated a times, but the Spirit has shown and given me patience for these times. There have been times it would have been more convenient to miss a Tuesday, but God desires, and these children need my faithfulness.  Over the last 12 months, the one fruit I could always count on experiencing, during my drive home from Reading Club, was joy.  In the early days of Reading Club, it was joy in trusting God that he was doing a good work through our time with the kids.  As the months went by it was joy from actually seeing the fruit growing in the kids as well as in myself.  

From all the reading buddies to "whosoever",  come and grow fruit with us!

~Margaret (Reading Buddy)

What Will God Do This Year?

We started Reading Club last fall with 14 children, grades 1-5, carefully chosen from a hundred possibilities.

Many of these children live in tough circumstances. They may have gone through a crisis with their families or experience need on a daily basis. They are often surrounded by danger. Some are hearing the name Noah, Moses and Abraham for the first time.

And we have been tasked by God to make them into disciples who love to read.

I wish I had the space to walk you through the past year and detail the program that God laid out for us to follow with these precious, loud, (sometimes) rambunctious children. I wish everyone who reads this could have been on that journey with us. In short, we have seen children transformed by the healing power of God through one-on-one mentoring with an adult who can be trusted to love and nurture them.

The year began with some chaos, and ended with these children creating three different book clubs in which to participate. They voted on the books, formed the groups, read their selections and discussed them with each other! This would have seemed impossible at the beginning, but nothing is impossible with God!

More precious, however, is hearing them speak with growing spiritual and biblical literacy. This is particularly evident in the growing maturity of their questions about God and the Christian life. They are becoming disciples who love to read.

I can't wait to see what God does this year!

~Becky (Reading Buddy) 

 

 

Glimpses of Rock the Village from our Volunteers

Becky's story:

"One activity all the children particularly loved was the chance to write their own prayer, tie it to a helium-filled balloon and release the balloon into the air. We explained that it was a picture of when we talk to God. One of our boys was disappointed when his balloon failed to fly. Another boy ran to grab the balloon off the ground while still clinging to his own. I assumed the worst and went to intervene. Instead, he was enthusiastically tying his floating balloon to the failing one so that his balloon could carry the other one to heaven. While he tied, I explained to both boys that this is what it means to pray for each other, that we are carrying someone else's prayers to God! It was glorious to see God provide this picture for these precious boys, but the joy was completed by having an opportunity to tell the story to their parents and see the delight on their faces. God is at work in Marks Village!"

Megan's story: 

"I was able to give a first grader a Bible. She said that she knew some of the stories, but now she could ask her parents to read them to her. She was so excited. She asked me to show her one of my favorite parts, so I turned to Isaiah 43:4, "you are precious and honored in my sight, and I love you..." She placed her little hand print craft in it as a book mark and said that she would try to memorize that verse. It was a sweet moment. I pray she grows to know all the Word has for her."

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!

            

            

This summer our teen boys have headed off on an Urban Adventure, spending most of their days on Ruffner Mountain getting out of their comfort zones and learning about Christ. One of their fearless leaders, Curtis, was out of his comfort zone last week when they were all going to walk off the side of a mountain (otherwise known as repelling), but knew he was going to do it anyway! As he was putting on all of his gear and telling the boys that he was nervous, one of the rising 6th graders began to quote back to him the lessons they had been learning that week. "Walk by faith, not by sight" "You can do it Mr. Curtis" "Walk by faith" And Curtis walked by faith right off of the side of the mountain! 

Short-term Mission in a Long-term Context

Last week was our biggest Oak Tree event of the year: Rock the Village. We had somewhere around 200 kids and 50 adults in and out from Monday through Friday for a huge vacation Bible school! We were outside daily from 4-6pm worshipping, doing crafts, playing games, drumming on drums, doing Zumba, watching puppets and flannel graphs and having a marvelous time!

I relished the fact that many kids were hearing the gospel as many as four times each day, even the ones that didn’t appear to be listening. I marveled in anticipation of what God could and would do with his Word that week. And now, I am in the wonderful position to watch and wait. I will keep working and preparing for the next day, the next event, but really, my work isn’t the important part. God is working and I want a front-row seat.

One of the most interesting aspects of the week for me was that just over a year ago I was on a short-term mission trip to Guatemala.

Last year I was in a foreign context, speaking another language, with people I have never met and am unlikely to ever meet again. It was wonderful and difficult all at the same time.

This year, I was in my own foreign/familiar context, speaking the same language (minus a few slang terms I’m still learning), with many people that I have known for 3 years and others that I met and am likely to meet again. Despite being in my own bed at night, the whole week felt very much like a short-term trip. I completely ignored all home tasks: laundry, cooking, vacuuming and other things like make-up and curling my hair. I talked with fewer people on the phone and had little “me” time. I had one goal for the week: to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in every word and action. What a wonderful opportunity! Suddenly, for one week, taking an hour for devotions in the morning wasn’t excessive, it was necessary. And vacuuming, not so much.

I have appreciated a week of air-conditioning and much quieter work hours now, I have caught up on laundry and I’m wearing makeup, but I am still processing and appreciating the rare opportunity that I had last week. I got to go on a short-term mission trip in my long term context. God gave me a week to remember why I am there every other week of the year: to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and action. And God can handle both giving me the words to explain substitution to children and my normal, everyday to-do list.

The Word of God is Living and Active

I know positively that “The word of God is living and active.” I know because I cling to the promises of God in his Word and because my God is so gracious to show me his wonders. I got to see his wonders yesterday at Reading Club…

      We began Family Meeting with a game and then settled into our study of the Fruits of the Spirit. We were continuing our study of ‘peace’. I pulled out my Bible, marked with several scriptures, saying we were going to find out what is God’s definition of peace. I began with Isaiah 9:6.

 “A child will be born to us. A son will be given to us. He will be called Wonderful Advisor and Mighty God. He will also be called Father Who Lives Forever and Prince Who Brings Peace.”

      Long before Jesus was born, God told Isaiah that he was going to send his son and he would bring us peace.

 We moved to the second verse, Luke 2:13-14.

 “Suddenly a large group of angels from heaven also appeared. They were praising God. They said, ‘May glory be given to God in the highest heaven! And may peace be given to those he is pleased with on earth!” 

Jesus has arrived and the angels declare that peace is coming.  

            But then, why don’t we have peace with God? Do we? We talked about what it means to have peace in our relationships with each other and then I pressed on with Romans 3:23.

 “Everyone has sinned. No one measures up to God’s glory.” 

And Romans 6:23.

  “When you sin, the pay you get is death. But God gives you the gift of eternal life because of what Christ Jesus has done.”

            We paused here and I walked over to one of the boys and said that it is kind of like me saying, “I’m not doing anything you say! I’m going to be mean to you; I’m going to be ugly to you! Then you turn around and saying, ‘Ok Ms. Halie, I’m going to die for you.'” It doesn’t make sense, but that is what Christ did for us! We said “no” to him and then he died for us!

            I continued reading Romans 5:1-2 and Romans 5:6-8.

 “We have been made right with God because of our faith. Now we have peace with him because of our Lord Jesus Christ. Through faith in Jesus we have received God’s grace. In that grace we stand. We are full of joy because we expect to share in God’s glory.”

 “At just the right time Christ dies for ungodly people. He died for us when we had no power of our own…While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

            I briefly reiterated that we have all sinned and said “no” to God, but that he died for us. But at that point, it was as if a flood gate of questions had opened in the room. One 4th grade girl looked at me and said, “When have I said ‘no’ to God? I haven’t said ‘no’ to God.” This thought was echoed across the room. It was as if all of a sudden, they heard me say they were sinners for the first time against God!

             I talked about how when we disobey what God has said, we are saying no to him, like when they disobey their parents. And the questions came again, “How am I saying ‘no’ to God when I disrespect my mom? I don’t understand how that goes together.”

          The Bible says that God has given us to our parents as gifts, he has put them in charge of us and told us to obey them. When we disobey, or disrespect them, we are telling God with our actions that we don’t think he made a good choice in picking our parents, that he was wrong and we shouldn’t have to obey.

             Then the conversation began about when we begin to sin and why do toddlers know how to say ‘no’ to their parents. One student has a baby sister, who is so tiny and yet knows how to say ‘no’. I asked this student if her mom had taught her sister how to say ‘no’. She giggled and said she hadn’t. Students all around the room began making suggestions as to how the baby could be disobedient:

             “Some people just hang out with the wrong people.”

            “Maybe she heard it from her siblings.”

            “She just doesn’t have any patience.”

            I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of many two-year-olds that hang around with the wrong crowd! At this point we have reached the end of our time for Family Meeting, but there is no way I am stopping this conversation!

           Finally, one of the teen girls, who works as a Reading Buddy, whispered to her first grade buddy, “We were born into sin.” He proudly reports it to the room and so begins the conversation of original sin!

           We are all sinners because we were born sinners! Do you remember Adam and Eve, when they sinned in the garden?

             “Yes, Satan was there and gave them the apple.”

            “So, did Satan make them sin?”

            “Yes” “No” “Yes”

            “Did Satan shove that fruit in their mouths and make them swallow?”

            “No”

“Adam and Eve sinned all by themselves and we sin all by ourselves. We don’t need anyone to help us sin; we do it all by ourselves.”

         Another of the teens, pipes in and asks, “Well has anyone ever been born without sin?” I am so excited that I get to answer, “Yes, one man” and before I have a chance to continue many kids start saying, “Jesus” all around the circle. Yes, Jesus was born without sin because his father was God, not an earthly father.

         But, praise God that because of what Jesus has done, we are not left in our sin. He came to save us. While I don’t want this to end, the questions have died down and everyone begins to fidget, so relishing the moment, I flip open my Bible to see the last verse I had marked. It was John 3:16.

 “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son. Anyone who believes is him will not die but will have eternal life.”

"What's your name?"

Our wonderful Bible Club volunteer, Bobby, told me this story from a recent day:

Okay, so two little children came in together to Bible Club, and I began the registration process. I asked the little boy his name. I could not understand him, but finally figured out he was saying Marquis (first name). Then, I asked what grade he was in. “Kindergarten," he said. Then the little girl said, "No, he's in the second grade." I asked him, "Kindergarten or second grade?" He said, “Yes." I finally figured it out - Kindergarten. So, I then asked the little girl her name.  She said, “Marquis.” I  told her she could not be Marquis also. Then one of the other Bible Club volunteers who had overheard our conversation wisely asked the little girl, "What does the teacher call you at school?” The little girl said, "Sit down."