Child Evangelism Fellowship Chicago

The five of us sat in a circle on the cold tiled floor between the men’s and women’s restroom doors, trying to ignore the hordes of kids, adults, and janitors stampeding around us. I looked at the girl and three boys, all of them Korean, who had just left their scheduled activities to ask me questions about salvation. They all wore the same neon green shirts; they all chattered self-confidently; they all appeared content to talk with each other and not listen to me–all except David. As the others talked about their salvation experiences, David asked, “What’s sin?” I dealt with the other kids’ questions first, explaining how they can be assured that they’re saved, and then I turned to David. As kids yelled and ran in circles around us, David kept his eyes on me the entire time. Over the hubbub, I was barely able to hear the words David prayed after he decided that he wanted to ask Jesus to save him: “Jesus, please cleanse my heart from all my sin.” I hadn’t even used the imagery of Christ CLEANING our hearts, but David must have heard it before and understood this was what he was asking Jesus to do. I am still so amazed that he understood so clearly and put it into his own words so accurately–amidst so much mayhem!

“Have you ever done this before?” I asked.
“No.”
“Do you think your parents could help you start reading the Bible?”
“I don’t know.”

I’ll never see David again. I don’t know if his parents are Christians–although I think he’s planning to tell them all about his new friendship with Jesus. I don’t know if he has any Christian influences in his life. But I helped him figure out how he could get his hands on a Bible and how to find the book of Mark so he can get to know Jesus by reading a little bit every day, and I’m so excited to see David again in heaven and hear how God used him!

Thank you so much for your prayer and financial support this summer! I can tell that you’ve been praying, as the above story shows. This is just a snippet of the ministry chances I’ve had this summer as I scamper madly from Bible club to Bible club. Sometimes I’m teaching kids who grew up with the gospel but need help making salvation personal or growing into a friendship with God; sometimes I can tell I’m charting new territory with kids who have never heard about God before.

Please pray:
1. that God will keep introducing Himself to kids this summer, and that He will create a growing relationship with each child my coworkers and I teach.
2. that God will give me wisdom and energy as I teach the youth group and clean houses–which are my part time jobs that I do alongside teaching Bible clubs once or twice a day this summer!

Her name was Kaitlin, and I fell in love the moment I saw her smile (minus a few teeth), dark eyes, and straggly brown bangs. She was one of quietest, shyest kids in our Summer Bible Club–and I so badly wanted her to know Jesus! But as she sat on the white plastic lawn chair inside the living room where we taught our club, Kaitlin was too shy to ask questions, too nervous to make eye contact, too quiet to answer my questions with more than a few words. (“What’s your favorite color? If you could be any animal, which one would it be?”) With just two days left in the club, I knew she might never hear the gospel again, as her parents wanted nothing to do with church–so I asked people to pray for Kaitlin. Why Kaitlin? She had a sister, she had friends–and I cared about teaching them too–but somehow, I knew I’d never be able to get her dimples and brown eyes out of my mind. The next day Kaitlin wasn’t at club at all, but the last day as my friend taught the Bible story, Kaitlin put up her hand to ask Jesus to take away her sin. I took Kaitlin and a few other kids (including her sister) into another room, and we sat down in a circle on the multicolored rug. I asked question after question, trying to make sure Kaitlin and her friends understood what they were doing–and Kaitlin answered each question correctly without hesitating. Her reasoning went something like this–

I can’t get into heaven because of my sin? I want to get into heaven–it ROCKS. Jesus, God’s Son, died for my sin, so I can go to heaven if I ask Him to take away my sin–that makes sense. I wanna do that… what? There’s more? Like, God wants to know ME? He wants to be my BFF (Best Friend Forever)? AWESOME! I want a Bible. No, seriously, you’re going to give me a Bible. I just won’t leave until you do.

In fact, she wouldn’t leave the room where she asked Jesus to take away her sin until I let her walk out holding MY Bible as collateral until we could get her one of her own! I hope she heard the rest of the Bible Club, but I don’t know, because she just sat there staring at the verses about salvation that I’d shown her, making me whisper them to her over and over, whispering to herself, “I get a Bible…”

My favorite part of this story is that Kaitlin couldn’t read yet–so if she was going to listen to her new Bible, her mom or dad would have to read it to her. I haven’t kept in touch with Kaitlin since that week last summer, but I left her in touch with a local pastor’s wife, who promised to take Kaitlin to church. Besides, I was right–I’ve never been able to get that dimply smile out of my mind–so I can’t help praying for Kaitlin.

Several weeks ago I nearly fell out of my chair at a work meeting as my coworker explained that God had burdened her to contact a children’s home to see if CEF can teach there this summer. My friend couldn’t help making eye contact with me–I was almost bouncing up and down and gasping like a fish out of water–the moment we made eye contact, I mouthed, “ME TOO!!” She scheduled a visit, we prayed and planned, and then we visited. This home is actually for children who still usually have parents or guardians, but who are not adequately provided for at home. These kids, ages 2-18, receive on-the-spot education, medical attention, love, and so much more! The director drove us over the extensive property, which looks more like a farm than anything else! We passed fishing areas, plumbers’ offices (!!!), riding trails, horse barn, archery field, clinic… the list goes on! The houses where the kids live (10 per house, with house parents) are elegant, comfortable, and fully-funded; the school was highly equipped; but my favourite part of the entire tour was sitting around a table on tall stools just outside the home’s bowling alley (!!!) and telling the director about CEF’s summer Bible clubs. As we finished our presentation, the director exclaimed, “A week before you contacted us, we decided we needed something exactly like this. And now here you are! Talk about timing!” Again, I nearly fell off my perch.

I can barely sit still as I think about all the things CEF has got planned for this summer. We’ll be teaching Five Day Bible Clubs (similar to VBS, but held in parks, homes, and fairs, for kids who probably never set foot in a church). Thinking of these clubs, I can’t help remembering God’s amazing work in Kaitlin’s heart last summer.

We’ll be teaching clubs like this to kids like Kaitlin all summer long, sometimes more than one club per day, but we won’t be doing it alone–before the clubs start, we’re spending two weeks in a camp-like setting, training local teenagers to teach children the Bible (this program is called “Christian Youth In Action,” or CYIA). Then we’ll take the teens into these Bible clubs, where we’ll coach them from the sidelines, and they’ll teach the kids.

This is why I’m in ministry; this is why I’m with CEF; this is why I teach kids–because of people like Kaitlin. And this summer, I can’t wait to meet more “Kaitlins,” and fall in love all over again.

I think God took my two small fish and turned them into a lunch fit for thousands.  No, there are not thousands attending the youth group where I teach–”just” 12 of the most curious, intelligent, polite people I’ve ever taught. I was overwhelmed when I started, terrified of my lack of ability.  Three weeks later, however, I’ve never had more fun in my life than when I’m reading three or four different versions of a Bible passage, trying to understand the main points, break them down to present to the teens, and come up with personal, sometimes self-incriminating stories to illustrate. Well, actually, it IS more fun to then take those Bible lessons and teach them to the teens, attempt to answer–or research–their really tough questions, and just get to know them better!

Two weeks ago I donned my bathrobe, which usually gets used whenever I teach Bible stories, and performed a dramatic monologue about the woman with the bleeding disorder in Mark 6. It got the kids thinking, but it also convicted me, as I taught about how His perfect love heals us and overcomes our fears just like He did for the woman and Jairus.

Last week I accompanied the youth group on a retreat to a camp in Michigan–where we sang “the campfire song song” around a campfire, played “carnage duck duck goose,” and had a contest to see who could stuff the most marshmallows into our mouths and still speak intelligibly. During the afternoon we split into teams. The rival team was asked, “What’s the most awesome part of God’s creation you’ve seen so far during this weekend?” The team responded, “Oceans! [never mind that there aren't any in Michigan...] because they’re full of species of fish that God created that we haven’t even discovered yet! Because He’s so creative and so awesome!” My team started yelling in outrage, “Cheaters! Cheaters! You’re quoting what Anna Beth said last Sunday about how awesome God is. Cheaters!” That team got the point in the contest… but they also showed that they got the point of my talk about God’s awesomeness. Oceans full of fish… and He makes my two small fish go much farther than they should reach…

That evening, we sat around a campfire while an amazing guitarist played, and we sang, praise songs. Suddenly a beaver surfaced in the lake 25 feet away–so we ran over there to go see God’s amazing creation. When we regrouped around the campfire, I talked about Peter–Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denial, Peter’s denial, and then Peter’s reinstatement on the beach with Jesus over a breakfast of fish He had just helped the disciples catch. As I told the teens the story, I mentioned some of my sins, and asked them to think of some of theirs. What are we supposed to do with these sins? Take them to the One Who fills oceans with countless, colorful fish, and ask Him to take away our sins. At the end of the Bible lesson, we wrote down lists of our sins on pieces of paper, confessing them to God, and then put the papers into the fire. As I watched my lengthy list burn and disintegrate within seconds, I was amazed all over again that He has taken our sins away from us “as far as the East is from the West” (Ps 103:3).

I would love prayer as I continue teaching these teens–

1. that God will continue making my two small fish… *ahem* I mean, my time and effort… stretch so much farther than I could ever have hoped!
2. that God will give me wisdom as I interact with my co-planners and the teens, making me able to show them how much I care about them.
3. that God will use every incident in these teens’ lives to draw them each one step closer to a personal relationship with Him–salvation for some of them, and a constant relationship with Him for others.

Thank you for your prayers!

During last week’s Bible club at the Choi home, I got to teach the Bible lesson, about the end of John 4–the nobleman’s son was sick and dying, so the father walked 20 miles to find Jesus and bring Him back to Capernaum to heal his son. But when he asked Jesus, Jesus just said, “You people will never believe until you see mioracles!” The desperate man kept begging until Jesus said, “Go. Your son will live.” And here’s the amazing part–the Bible says the man “took Jesus at His word and left.” Twenty miles is a five hour walk or a couple-hour horse-back ride–if Jesus didn’t heal the boy, it would be too late by the time the father got home. But he believed Jesus and left. When he got home, his servants met him on the road and told him his son had recovered “at the seventh hour”–the exact moment Jesus had said, “Your son will live.”

Obviously, BELIEF was the key concept when I taught this story to the kids, and since many of them had heard the story before, I had to take dramatic measures to make the story come alive. I wrapped myself up in my big fuzzy white bathrobe, threw a shawl over my head, and told the kids about the amazing miracle that had happened to my family who lives in Capernaum and how we met Yeshua. The kids–who are sometimes bouncing off the walls, picking their noses, or trying to snitch candy–listened with rapt attention as I “galloped” on my imaginary horse for three hours between Capernaum and Cana (where Yeshua was at the time). The conversation derailed slightly when the kids realized I’d never seen a cell phone before and tried to show me theirs, but we got back on track quickly when I knelt before Yeshua, begging Him, “Come save my son!” The kids and I deliberated at length about if I should BELIEVE Yeshua, and why. All on their own, the kids brought up all the points I was going to make sure they thought of–Yeshua is God’s Son. Yeshua keeps His promises. Yeshua can do anything He wants. Yeshua is good.

We talked about problems the kids have these days: betrayal by “BFF’s” (“Best Friend Forever”), dry skin, homework. “What can we do with these problems?” I asked. The response was unanimous–”Ask Jesus for help!” But what does that do? “You keep praying and praying and praying, and He always does what’s best!” the kids explained. To drive home the point about BELIEVING God’s goodness to us, I asked for a volunteer, and then began bragging about my extraordinary powers of egg juggling. However, in the process of demonstrating these powers, I dropped an egg, which broke all over my coworkers’ floor. (The kids yelled, “Oooooooooh! You’re gonna get it!” Fortunately, my gracious coworkers had already given me permission to do this.) “All you have to do,” I continued, “is stand there while someone throws an egg at you and I catch it! I promise–oops! [I dropped another egg on the floor] not to let the egg make a mess on your clothes.” My volunteer took a step back, but bravely waited–until I put a blindfold over my eyes. “I promise not to let any egg make a mess on your clothes. Do you BELIEVE me?” He didn’t answer. As I stumbled over to stand between my volunteer and Jong Dae Choi (his father, who was going to throw the egg), I heard the other kids yelling, “I want to throw it!” They must have figured they had a defenseless target, especially when I ended up facing the wrong direction, away from Jong Dae. After that was all sorted out, I proclaimed myself ready–Jong Dae cocked back his arm–I jumped up and down, clawing the air and shrieking–he threw the egg–it bounced off my volunteer’s chest and rolled along the floor. HARD BOILED!!! After the kids had stopped arguing about who got to eat the hard boiled egg, I turned to my volunteer. “Thank you for BELIEVING me even when it didn’t look like I could keep my promise,” I told him.

As hilariously fun as all this was, it made me stop and think–how often do I as an adult believe God and stand still, waiting for Him to intervene, even when it looks like I’m going to get plastered by raw, even rotten, egg situations?  Maybe the kids weren’t the only ones who needed that lesson in belief.

Thursday my coworkers (Jong Dae and Mi Hyoung Choi and Kara Lancaster) and I taught our weekly Good News Bible Club about John 2, Jesus first miracle (turning water to wine). As we studied the passage the week before teaching it, my coworkers and I brainstormed about impossibilities in our lives, and God’s sometimes unexpected ways of meeting these needs. We talked about health problems, we talked about betrayals of friendship, we talked about financial struggles. As we looked deeper into the passage, we realized that without the groomsman’s humiliating miscalculation in wine, without the complete impossibility of the situation, there could never have been a miracle! We thought about the storms on the Sea of Galilee, the lack of food for thousands of people, the devastating deaths of loved ones–and realized that in Jesus’ eyes,

IMPOSSIBILITY IS THE FERTILE GROUND FOR MIRACLES.

During that Thursday club, we asked the kids about some of their problems. We tried to get a three-year-old little boy  to stop burrowing under the couch cushions, rubbing his socks under peoples’ noses, and jumping on peoples’ laps. We tried to teach the Bible verse despite the constant interruptions of kids who wanted to be in the spotlight. I tried to tell the kids the missionary kid story (about a Moroccan, Muslim boy named Hamed who runs away from home and eventually meets Jesus), but I included too much review from the previous chapters, which frustrated the kids. Somewhere in the middle of the mayhem, I looked up at the ceiling and wondered, “God, You used 12 mottley disciples to change the world. If impossibility is Your fertile ground for miracles, can You use me to change these kids’ worlds?” We taught the kids the Bible story of turning water to wine. At the end of the story, we brought out a pitcher which had, unknown to the kids, grape Kool-Aid powder in the bottom. As a kid poured water into the pitcher–voila!–”wine!” Their eyes bugged out; they really grasped the wonder of an impossibility becoming a miracle (until they figured out our secret at the end of the club). The kids insisted on tasting the “wine,” and were intrigued by the flavor. “It almost tastes like grape, but it’s really sour… kinda yucky.” “Why would anyone ever drink this stuff?” “Nasty!”

I may be inept, but I know when there’s something that wrong. “Lemme taste it, guys,” I said, taking the glass.

“It’s nasty–don’t drink it,” the boy next to me whispered warningly.

“I know–that’s why I have to try it,” I muttered, and took a sip. *blech* We forgot to add sugar! “So that’s what wine tastes like,” one of the kids mused.

Despite the sugarless setback (which the kids temporarily blamed on the “wine”), the kids got the point! “My old BFF [best friend forever] just picked a new best friend, and now she’s mean to me in recess,” one girl mentioned. “I have way too much homework,” someone else contributed. We asked the kids how they could take these seeming impossibilities to Jesus, encouraging the kids to expect Him to respond. Sometimes His miracles are as obvious as turning water into wine. Other times, He helps us cope with the situation–or uses natural methods to resolve it. Either way, our impossibilities are the fertile ground for God’s miracles.

Two days ago I got the privilege of teaching adults how to conduct a party club, a Good News Club program designed to help the kids celebrate Valentine’s Day.  I had a blast teaching adults (to teach kids) a synced-up version of “Jesus Loves Me,” and teaching the “Valentine’s Day verse” (Mark 12:30:  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”)  The theme of the workshop was teaching children how to love God with “all your heart;” to illustrate this phrase, I showed a picture of a runner whose expression denoted concentration and struggle; then I advised the teachers to imitate the runner as if he were only putting part of his heart into the race–by “running” around the room like a lame duck!  The teachers were incredible learners and it was exciting to see how gifted they are.  It was a privilege to introduce them to a new Bible lesson they can teach about three Bible characters who loved with all THEIR hearts (Hannah, who gave God Samuel; Abraham, who gave God Isaac; and GOD, Who gave US Jesus).  This Bible lesson explained the reason behind Jesus’ death and resurrection (to take the punishment for our sin so we can be adopted into God’s family).  The lesson ends with Jesus’ resurrection and breakfast conversation with Peter beside the Sea of Galilee: “Do you love Me, Peter?”  At this point, the teachers will ask the kids, “Do YOU love Him?”  The teachers will challenge saved and unsaved kids to find specific ways to love God with all THEIR hearts.  And all this is done in an easy-to-understand, captivating way!

In case you ever wondered, insanity + pillow fights = “We Three Kings.”  At least, it did during the Bible Club/Christmas Party I got to help teach last week.  After the screaming had died down and the pillows had stopped flying, but before club officially began, several of the kids and I gathered on the stairs and sang songs like “Country roads, take me home,” and “You belong with me,” and ending with “Twelve Days of Christmas,” and “We Three Kings.”  About fifteen minutes later, I was teaching them the story of the Three Kings.  When I asked for volunteers to act out the story, they all raised their hands and jumped up and down.  I picked three–who, to their chagrin, were assigned to act as camels.