Lucy: God exceeding my expectations

It’s past midnight and I’m the only one still up, but I had a dessert with coffee jelly and soft serve ice cream on top, so I’m kind of wired by the caffeine. So I’m taking this time to blog about this amazing day! I can’t believe today (or I guess technically yesterday) was the last day of VBS, and I’m going to miss the kids in my group so much! The day before, I thought we had decided not to invite my group to say the “believer’s prayer” because of their young age, but this morning Shirley said to go ahead and invite them to pray anyway. Reasoning: why limit the Holy Spirit? And if they are too young to understand, at least they would have heard the prayer and this would allow them to better understand in future years. So at the end of the memory verse learning time, I sat down with them and invited them to pray silently the believer’s prayer along with me. At the end of the prayer, I thought their eyes were still closed and I asked them to raise their hands if they accepted Christ. When I looked up, their eyes were wide open and they all had their hands up! I had a whole bunch of thoughts all at once when I saw that: 1) they are so adorable and I want to take them all home with me! 2) Okay, I’m new at this and I should have reminded them to keep their eyes closed 3) they are probably too young to understand what I was saying 4) maybe something was lost in translation 5) But God is still so good! I was expecting no hands to be raised, and instead I got the opposite! Even if they didn’t understand what was going on, I felt so encouraged anyway. And maybe, just maybe, some of them did accept Jesus today. Later, Shirley had the kids fill out response cards, and one of the questions was: did they accept Jesus as their Savior. Some of the kids in my group checked the yes response!

I do want to ask you to pray for these kids and for all of those in the other age groups who accepted Jesus this week. At least for the ones in my group, they are so young I wonder how much or if they understand what it means to become a follower of Jesus, but I am reassured that God knows their hearts and that He loves each and every one of them so much more than I do. One of them who checked “yes” is on my heart in particular: when going over Philippians 4:6 yesterday, this child shared about being worried for a parent’s health (and I knew that this parent had a serious illness). Some of you know that one of my parents had serious health issues last year, and it was really hard for me even though I’m in my 30’s. To think that a young child has to bear this kind of worry breaks my heart. I am praying that he now knows (or at least will know) Jesus and His comfort.

Also, I am struck by how we are here for just a couple of weeks, which means that we are reaping the fruit of those who sowed before us, and that when we leave, the Tamuras will have the task of following up with the kids and growing them in their faith. Please pray for the Tamuras in this; there are so many thorns here in Japan that can strangle young faith, and we must have the power of the Holy Spirit to provide the protection they need here. They’ve become so dear to me in just one short week, and I’ll be praying very hard for them all.

BTW, as soon as I get access to one of the cameras that took our group photo, I’ll post it. These kids are really, really cute.