Childlike Simplicity

Today our cell group was pretty wild. Total of 9 kids and 5 of them were the new kids. There were Jeffrey, Irene, Jason, Oscar, David, Linda, Beckie, Maya, and Haley. I had to drive two rounds in order to bring them all there, and all back home afterwards. However, I am totally enjoying serving the kids. Though it's kind of tiring to drive, but when I think about how these kids are the royal Priests of God all the tiredness was gone! As I was looking at my action plan for this group, and through all the materials that Jack provided (thank you so much Jacko!), I know that it is crucial for them to have the ability to spread the gospel. Duh. So today I brought a big white poster and colorful papers to teach them what is the gospel and how they can spread it. The meeting started kind of out of control. The issue being the huge age gap between them, we had kids from 4 all the way up to 13. The bigger kids were complaining about how noisy the little ones are (c'mon, little support please? T_T), and the little ones were just having a lot of fun playing, jumping, laughing on the couch. It was kind of hard to get their attention or focus to do just anything I was doing. Ex. Sing worship songs. I finally got their attention by telling them testimonies of little children praying for the sick and the sick got healed, and the hospital has to close down because of not enough patients. (Thanks Jen again for that article!) I asked them, so you all know that there is a God and you believe in Him. How can you tell your friends about God? This is where I got two very different responses from the older group and the younger group. David, 13 yrs old, responded, "I can talk to my friend about God and then invite them to my church and my cell group so they can know more about Him." Haley, 4yrs old, came up to my ear and whispered to me, "Love her (friend) and like her (friend)." And she has this bright and joyful smile on her face. I was really moved, and seriously, besides telling your friend the whole gospel story and bringing them to church, you just need to show God's love to them.

Then I pulled out the posters and began my message for the day. I asked them to write/draw the words, "God", "Life", "Death", "Sin", and their names on the colored papers. David was really artistic in writing the word, "God". He even added a crown on it because he said God is the King. So then I started my story telling of how before anything existed, God existed, and He created men then give them eternal Life. I had the two little girls, Maya and Haley draw arrows whenever we needed them in the story. (Ex. God gave us eternal Life) Then because we Sinned, we fell and was separated from God. There was no way to go back to God because of the Sin that's in the middle blocking us. Back then people had to use blood from animals as sacrifice to cleanse our sins. However, when Jesus Christ came down to Earth and shed blood for us, He carried all of mankind's sins so we're clean and forgiven again. We can go back to God again through Jesus Christ and receive our eternal Life once again. At the end I pick up the sign that says, "Sin", and I said to the kids, "We don't want sin in our lives because it separates us from God, and we don't want to be separated from God. Right now we're going to take turns to tear off this "Sin", and then ask God to come inside of us." I asked then, "Who would like to be the first one to tear this?" Almost everyone raised their hand high in eagerness. I had them all lined up, one by one, the kids torn the paper into smaller and smaller pieces. After each torn, they would shout out, "No more sin in me, but God in me!" At the end of the meeting, we stood in a circle and prayed and at the end of the prayer, we shouted together in joyfulness, "God is GREAT!"

Seriously God is great. He was there with us, even after cell group when we were having deserts and juice. (Thank you Kay's mama for ALWAYS preparing snacks for us to eat after the cell group!!) I've noticed that Maya and Haley loves to argue, but the difference is, Haley would always respond with love. I saw Maya arguing with Haley about always copying what she says and stuffs, Haley was quiet and she turned to Maya and kissed her on her head when Maya was still yelling to her. After that, Maya was silenced by that kiss. It was quite amazing how this little girl behaves. I don't know about these two girls' family background of knowing God or not, but I've learned a lot from a 4 year-old today. When I was driving them home, I couldn't stop smiling because of how awesome God is in showing me the innocence and simple heart of these kids. This is true simplicity. No wonder kids' eyes are always so bright, they don't worry, they don't doubt. God make my heart like these girls', bring me back the childlike faith and hope once again Lord. I love You.

-sala<3