In South Africa,
the children go to school year round.
They do this with a few "holidays" during the year.
The other week, the children were on "holiday" from school.
That provided a perfect opportunity for a 5-day Bible Club.
Everyday, the children would come in to play before Bible Club.
Many of the older girls knew their memory verses and were more than eager to say them.
Karen and I would listen to them say their verses.
On Tuesday, the Lord did something just for me.
As I watched the children playing outside, I saw a little boy standing alone.
He seemed a little shy, so I went up to talk to him.
Of course, I know hardly any Zulu,
but I thought he might feel more welcome if someone was friendly to him.
So, I greeted him in Zulu and then asked him in English if he wanted to work
on his memory verse with me.
He just gave me this puzzled look, because he had no idea what I said in English.
I just smiled at him (I kind of felt the same way,
because I had no idea what he was saying either).
Since he had his memory verse booklet in his hand I reached down
and pointed to the verse for the day and began to say it in Zulu.
He then understood and started to say it with me.
I was so blessed that even though we did not speak the same language,
we could work on memorizing the Word of God together.
This brought a big smile to his face!
Here are a few of our memory verses in Zulu.
Do you recognize any of the Bible references?
When it is time for Bible Club to start,
everyone comes in to sing.
After the singing, Pastor Don comes to play a review game.
The children loved the review games, because they answered questions from the previous lessons and then got to put a piece of flannelgraph on the board.
Next, came my favorite part - teaching the Bible lesson.
I love teaching children!
For this particular 5-Day club, I taught about how God used things
from the Old Testament to point people to the cross.
During the week, I had 2 different translators.
Londiwe was one of them.
I am doing Bible Study once a week with her.
We are studying the Book of John.
Mzamo is also a man who translated for me.
Praise the Lord for these two who were willing to give of their time,
so that the children could hear the Gospel.
These two boys accepted Christ as their Savior
during that week of 5-Day Bible Club.
Praise the Lord that many others besides these two got to hear God's Word.
The girl wearing the orange dress in the picture below was the first one saved 5 years ago, during my first time teaching Vacation Bible School here in South Africa.
Her name is Pamela.
She is also the only girl who said all of her verses for the week.
It was a blessing to see that she still had a hunger for God.
It was exciting to get a chance to teach the Bible to these kids.
Our hope is that the Word of God,
through us,
will impact these little ones for the rest of their lives.
Mark 10:14
"... Suffer the little children to come unto Me,
and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."
(English)
"... Vumelani abantwana beze kimi, ningabenqabeli,
ngokuba umbuso kaNkulunkulu ungowabanjalo."
(Zulu)