Monday 2/25- We ministered t 190 children today at Bontebok Primary school. Several schools in the area sent children to see us. Approximately 130 children received glasses. I worked the dispensary (the station where we actually give them the glasses and fit them) most of the day. I assessed a few of the children. When you assess a child you take some time to chat with them, get to know a littel bit about them, talk to them about Jesus and then lastly give them an eye exam to see if they need to be fitted for glasses, and then take time to pray with them before they go to the dispensary.
One child that I assessed was named Cheston. He had five brothers and he lived with them and his mother and father. He said everything was good at home. I then asked him if he knew who Jesus was. He did and he told me what he knew about Jesus. He told me he had asked Jesus into his heart. Before he left I asked if I could pray with him and he said I could. I asked if there was anything specific I could pray with him about. He wanted to pray for his granny who had a heart condition and his 2 uncles who were sick. I began to explain to him that Jesus can heal them and in fact he could go home and lay hands on his family and pray for their healing and Jesus would come and heal them. I prayed over him and his family and asked for Jesus to bring his healing power and to anoint his hands with healing. Before he left I asked him to do me a favor and when he arrived home to go to his granny and uncles and lay his hands on them and pray to Jesus that he would come and heal them. He promised me he would. I will probably never know the outcome of this, but I have absolute faith in my heart that Jesus will heal them through that little boy.
Tuesday 2/26/08 - We saw around 135 children today in Bredasdorp and fitted 95% of them with glasses. This school was so amazing. From the moment we stepped into it we knew something was different about it. It was so nice and you could actually feel something in the atmosphere. Come to find out a short time later, most of the teachers in this school were believers and the headmaster was a strong believer and he has transformed that school and those children by cultivating the presence of God. They open up staff meetings with prayer....the faculty brings scripture with them to share. They told us that in the auditorium where we were holding the clinics every morning they would be worshipping the Lord with song in there. The aroma of the presence of God still lingered...it was tangible. The amazing thing about this was that this day was the day we had the most children accept the Lord as their Savior. Most of the kids who did were not from that school but had just come for the clinics. It was almost as if there were an open heaven over that school; everything was just so effortless. You could even feel the presence leaking out to the town. The staff helping us completely spoiled us...bringing us tea and coffee and feeding us a wondeful lunch with delicious chocolate cake for dessert. (That doesn't happen...that is definitely not the norm). After we ate we had a wonderful time with the headmaster. He shared a lot of things with us and we had a wonderful time of prayer before we left.
One awesome story from that day was that Steve was assessing a young boy. In talking with this boy he came to understand that this boy was beng extremely harrassed by his fellow students. When it came time for Steve to pray with him the little asked to pray for those students who were being mean to him. Wow....Steve was so taken back at how this young child who could have asked for prayer for himself opted to follow scripture when it says, "pray for those who persecute you." A child's faith is so simple and so beautiful. Why must we as adults always complicate it. To make for an even better story this child needed major help with his eyes. He needed to see a specialist and we could not help him at the vision clinic. One of the other team members had taken a picture of Steve and this child. When another team member heard about this story he was so moved and wanted to find out the name of this child. Using the picture (although his head was blocked by Steve's hand around his head praying for him), we were able to give it to the school to track down who this child was because there happened to be a teacher in the background of this picture who would know which child this was. After about 5 different people gettng involved the child has been discovered and the headmaster, the student, and the mother have now been informed that one of our team members will be footing the bill for whatever needs to be done to correct his eyes. We have been told that the school, the boy, and the mother are sooooo overwhelmed and excited. Now that's a GREAT testimony.
Wednesday 2/27/08 - This day was a bit more challenging for doing the vision clinics. We were in a very cramped space basically falling all over each other throughout the day. But despite the cramped conditions we were able to reach around 90 kids and fitted around 66 of them with glasses. Throughout this day we were able to share the love of Jesus with each child.
Thursday 2/28/08 - We saw around 128 children and fitted most with glasses. I thoroughly enjoyed being at this school. It was an extremely large school with children in Grades 1-9. It was obvious that this area had more poverty because many of the kids in 7-9 grades were 14-18 yrs. old. Often this is the case in very poor areas because they are not able to go to school when they are young because they are too poor or too many kids in the family.
We had quite a bit of down time at the beginning of the day because the students were coming to us in spurts, so I took the opportunity to walk around and pray in the spirit over the school and the children. Later in the day I assessed a few of the children. One girl really struck my heart. She was about 12 or 14 and I had to communicate with her through an interpretor. I found out she lived with her granny and her mom and other siblings lived far away in a shack. She said that when she is home with her mom she(the child) has to be the mom, so she came to live with granny so she could be a kid and go to school. When it came time to pray with her she wanted to pray for her granny that she would stay healthy and live long so she could stay with her and finish school and be a kid. (Aooaooh...that's the sound of my heart breaking). Can you imagine having to go through that and to pray that your granny lives "forever" so you can be a kid and finish school. I prayed a special blessing over that girl and she gave me a smile before she left. That made my day.
Friday 2/29/08 - Today was the last day of vision clinics in this area. Because one of our team members was sick I did assessments/eye examinations all day. You wouldn't think it would be exhausting to do that, but it is very emotionally exhausting to do it. We saw lots of little ones at this school who were very cute. We needed a lot of interpreters because the little ones didn't speak any English.
God saved the best for last for me on this last day of clinics. The very last student I assessed was named Evedene. She was so special. She loved school and wanted to be a doctor when she grew up. She lived in a house with 19 other people. What? Yes, that's right...19. She spoke very good English, so I know I did not misunderstand her. As I spoke with her a while I asked her if she knew who Jesus was and if she went to church. She told me she did know who Jesus was, but as we were talking I discovered that she had never asked Jesus to come into her heart and be her Saviour. I asked her if that was something that she would like to do and she said that it was. So, I had the awesome privilege of leading her to the Lord. Wow....it doesn't get much better than that. That was such a blessed way to end the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment