The Great, Big, Wonderful, Prayer-answering God I serve

Two months ago I met with a group of students from Beacon High School who were identified as potential student leaders by the Christian teachers there. I continued meeting with them on a weekly basis, teaching them what the Bible said about salvation, since there were varying views, and discussing plans for launching ISCF at their school.

We set up an Executive Committee, and one of my suggestions for fund-raising was that they collect contributions from Exec members whenever they had a meeting, so there would be a base fund for the bigger fund-raisers. I advised them to leave the funds with the school secretary for safe-keeping. They ignored my advice, and the result was that the treasurer took the money they contributed and 'gave it to a teacher who was collecting money for the poor'... After dealing with this drama, encouraging them to love and forgive instead of exacting vengence, the individual eventually gave back the money, and voluntarily stepped off the committee.

The next major hurdle was getting them to focus on planning meetings for the term. They had a desire to do a hamper for the St. Elizabeth's Children's home with the funds they collected, and they only wanted to talk about that. Well, that and the fact that I was starting a group at the nearby Boys' secondary school and they wanted to come and help...

I can truly testify that God indeed answers prayer because today THEY HAD THEIR FIRST ISCF MEETING AT SCHOOL!!! The students did everything.

Sophia opened in prayer. She read a long prayer she had written from a page. She has come a long way from praying so softly the first time we asked her to pray that even the person sharing the chair with her could not hear what she said.

The Executive - Whitney, Hadassa, Danielle, Ariel and Sophia.
Aldon was missing in action

Danielle introduced the Exec and then read out the program for the meeting.

Ariel shared about the ABCs of salvation (Acknowledge, Believe and Choose) while Danielle read the associated scripture verses. They even got the other students involved by asking them questions - What should we acknowledge? What should we believe?

Ariel and Danielle sharing the ABCs of salvation

Then Danielle and Hadassa sang “He wants it all” with Danielle giving a very good challenge for them to surrender every aspect of their lives to God. They sang it beautifully, although on Monday Danielle was complaining that Hadassa could not sing at all and that she was tone deaf, but she really wasn't.

Danielle and Haddasa singing their special song

Then Sophia went in search of Aldon because he wasn’t at the meeting, and he was responsible for the game. When he did arrive, he explained the game and they had a lot of fun playing it.

Playing 'Message'

 Afterwards the sponsors told the Exec that they did an excellent job, and I told them I was proud of them.

Great things also happened at Boca Secondary School yesterday. I started meeting with Hope, Nickel and Selina a month ago - they were identified as potential student leaders at Boca. However, due to the indiscipline of the mostly non-Christian students  who came out to the meetings (approximately 20 every week) they were intimidated to accept leadership in the group. I couldn't blame them, because even I had a difficult time getting the students to settle down enough to hear when I was talking to them.

But yesterday we put the students in two small groups to do a dramatic presentation of a scenario (Selina gave the ideas for the scenarios, Hope wrote them out, and I helped them find relevant Bible verses). Praise be to Jesus that Hope and Selina actually agreed to be in charge of the small groups! They read the scenarios and organised the students to act it out.

Playing a game while waiting on the rest of the students to come

Having discussions in their small groups

 On top of that, the students were actually very attentive in the groups! The younger boys didn't hit one other, the older girls weren't shouting insults at the students who were outside... everyone sat quietly while they discussed the drama, and when it was time for the presentation, they gave their full attention.

Eager to see the drama

Scene 1: Your classmate steals your book from your schoolbag

Reacting to the fight scene: JERRY! JERRY!

Hope reading the Bible verses that speak about stealing

We only had time for one scenario, but the students participated willing in the discussion afterwards. They recognised the futility of returning evil for evil, and accepted the option of forgiveness. IT WAS A GREAT MEETING!!!!!

So yeah, that's just my testimony of the Great, Big, Wonderful, Prayer-answering God I serve :)