Wow! This past week has flown by! I cannot believe we only have one more week of ministry left 🙁
This last week we taught English at a school and it was FULL of kids. Sooo many kids. Going into this trip I was feeling kinda nervous about doing a lot with young kids because I don’t feel like I am energetic or crazy enough, I don’t have a passion for them, and I often feel like I can do ministry much more effectively with older high school or college aged kids. I’ve never described myself as a “kid person” because everyone in my circle at school is, and I just don’t feel as good at working with kids as them. But this week I knew was going to need a lot of energy that I didn’t have, and was going to require a lot of extra love for the kids – which I didn’t feel like I had. So, the morning of the first day with them, I asked God to give me eyes to see children in the way that he does: beautiful, smart, innocent, worthy of love, precious – so I could love them beyond what my human abilities grant. I also asked him to give me extra energy and silliness, because those are super needed when you’re trying to win a child’s heart. And guess what? God pulled through! I had the time of my life teaching English to these kids, and just loving on them at their school. We danced and sang with them until their smiles were too big for their faces to contain – and I became the class clown a few times!
We taught (the 2nd-4th graders) about colors and told them the story of Noah’s ark. In two of the classes, a kid asked about the story of Jesus and so we were able to share the gospel with two classes! When our translator, Jasmine, was telling the story, they literally all looked up from what they were coloring and couldn’t keep their eyes off of her. It was so evident that the Holy Spirit was moving in the room because nothing else would cause that kind of sudden attention.
After class, we had lunch with them, where we danced and sang and the principal asked us to go on stage and sing Karaoke!… so we did! It was a blast and the children went wild when we did that. I never would have thought we would be singing Baby by Justin Bieber in Thailand for ministry, but that’s what they wanted, so that’s what we did!
I was blown away by how respectful (I think American students could take some lessons from them) the Thai students were. They also just loved learning and were excited to have the opportunity to learn the language from an American. I surprisingly found a lot of purpose from teaching English to these kids; I didn’t realize how much learning English can do so much to prevent a bad future for these kids (likely dealing drugs or getting into prostitution).
Please pray that these children would continue working hard in school and would continue to be curious about Jesus (especially the ones that we explained the gospel to). Also please pray for their home life – that it would be a safe and loving environment for the kids.
