2 Amazing Things to Report

Greetings! My life has changed in many ways since I got back from the states- accessibility to the Internet and time being one of them. I wanted to write today about two things that I'm praising God for recently.

The first is a student, in first grade. He's always been one of my wildest children and the least likely to pay attention, and then last spring, my site partner Cindy witnessed him sitting in meditative positions, as if doing yoga. As summer came, be began acting stranger and stranger, until he couldn't make it through a class without crying hysterically. One week he came in completely in a trance, and was non responsive to absolutely everything I said and did, his eyes unable to focus on anything. Cindy's nephews were here that week visiting from China, and one of the boys, not much older than my student, came and sat next to him and prayed for him. The other students were clearly frightened by his markedly strange behavior. This particular week though, it was only one other student, so I scrapped the lesson plan of colors and shapes and opened up a children's Bible and did my best to give a bilingual account of the English story. It was only during this time during the class- especially at the point in the story where I spoke of Jesus' death and resurrection that he spoke up and became responsive. From that week on, I began to play worship music in the background during every class- and a miracle happened! From the first class he was better, and he has continued to stay focused to the point that he is accelerating beyond the other students in the class and is now the top student. I shared this news with his mother this last week and even got him to show off his skills in front of her. She was absolutely amazed!!!! "But what about before... he was always crying and hysterical!" I told her about the worship music, and how it calmed her son. She was speechless other than to hug her son and tell him how happy it made her. I continue to learn and grow in my Christian walk... may it always be so! I've always heard how powerful prayer is, and experienced it at times too- but worship... there is so much more going on here than first meets the eye. I have a lot of learning to do about it. But what an amazing thing that simply the power of God's word sung in worship could do such things in my little English class. Please pray that this family will one day join in true hearts of worship with such music and with a body of believers!

The second thing happened just today. I've been thinking about my last months here- how to spend them, and where to invest time and energy. I've spoken with others about this too, and we all agree that there would be nothing worse than for us to leave without having shared the gospel clearly with every person we know, and giving them the chance to respond- one way or another (that part's all God's work!). So I decided to waste no time, and I shared a book in one class today, Heaven is a Wonderful Place. It is a children's story, using simple words and pictures, and it gives such a beautiful explanation of the Gospel and what we have to look forward to- Heaven!!! After reading it, a student commented on one of the final pages (a paraphrase in kids-ese of 1 Cor. 13) by saying that just last week she had felt very angry, and so she opened her Bible to that passage (because it'd come up in class a few weeks earlier) and read it. She felt so much better afterward, calmer, more in control.

God is so amazing! I feel so blessed to be able to watch the way He is using His word to open people's hearts to His message of love, forgiveness, and salvation for all!