Child Evangelism Fellowship Chicago

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.