Dear Youth Parents and supporters :)!
Yesterday
was our first day of VBS and the first time we got to spend an entire
day with the kids. It was a lot of fun but also very tiring for our
youth team! Today's youth update comes from Jeffery Yan, 10th grader:
Dear Parents, Family, and all else who may be concerned,
Overall, today was busy but also an excellent educating experience. We began our day with a relatively early (in comparison to most people’s “normal schedules) morning roll call at 6:30 by singing a few praise songs, sharing life journals, and prayer. Following this included breakfast, devotionals, and final preparations for VBS until around 8:45—attendees to the VBS began dropping in around 8:30, totaling around 50 kids towards the end. Until around 17:00, we commenced with various VBS activities, including worship, games, lunch, naptime, crafts, and English lessons. After dinner, there were no activities planned until 20:45 (the last activity of the day). At that time we sang a couple praise songs, debriefed our first day of instruction, and prayed for the next couple days to come.
One memorable experience was seeing how the kids’ behavior changed for the better as the day progressed. When they first arrived, most seemed reluctant to do anything and lacked much enthusiasm. Later on when leading praise songs/dance, I was provided an opportunity to view a different side of the children—one bursting with energy and excitement. This soon morphed into slight rebellion, however, when meeting in small groups. But as we (the staff) grew more accustomed with the kids and vice versa, this tension was loosened and all was well by the close of the first day, evidenced by the students’ increased excitement and participation as a whole when performing various VBS songs. From this experience I learned, once again, that “you can’t always judge a book by its cover”. Managing my small group of six students (even with two other youth as co-leaders) was also no simple task. But the more we spent time with them, striving to show them God’s love, the more we were able to fully interact with them and even hold conversations.
We kindly ask if you could support us in prayer at this time, for although we teach the VBS, nothing will happen without prayer for God’s hand working among both us and the children.
Some things that we need prayer for at the moment are as follows:
1) Unity amongst the missions team
2) Strength to
a) heed what God may have spoken to us
b) to persevere even when physically or spiritually tired
3) A willingness to learn to be found in the kids attending the VBS
4) For God to do great things in Taidong, so that we can just marvel at how great He is.
In Christ,
Jeffery Yan
P.S.: I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors that you may find and I thank you for bearing with me as I have a difficult time making things seem interesting.God bless!
We
are so thankful to God for His incredible provision in every way and we
are continually thankful for your support and prayers! No one on the
team has gotten sick and everyone has been in good health and high
spirits even though the days have been long and tiring.
We hope you are enjoying these updates and look forward to sharing more when we return!
In His grace,
Lynn & Aaron :)
