It was our first night of ministry and none of us knew what we were doing.
Going into the evening, all I was prepared for was the plan we had. We were going to perform a drama that illustrates the Gospel, two of my teammates were going to share their personal testimonies and someone else was going to explain the Gospel story.
We rolled into the township at dusk and immediately there was a crowd of children and some adults surrounding us. We walked a few streets down from where we parked and started to perform our drama.
More and more people gathered as the drama went on and after my teammates shared their stories and the Gospel, we opened it up so that people could come talk to us about Jesus if they were interested. My team split up and almost as soon as we did I had about ten little girls grabbing onto me saying, “we want to talk about Jesus!”
After learning their names, I told them about Jesus, the sacrifice He made for them and how He is still loving them. I told them what it means to follow Jesus and then asked if they wanted to know Him more and have Him in their hearts. All of them said yes! So, I began leading them in a prayer to accept Jesus into their hearts and make Him Lord of their lives.
As soon as we said amen, one of the girls grabbed my arm and said, “I want to know Jesus forever.”
As soon as we said amen, one of the girls grabbed my arm and said, “I want to know Jesus forever.” Later, I found out that her father had been murdered when she was younger and that she helped raise her younger siblings. She was only twelve but had so much responsibility that even some adults cannot manage. I told her to bring her Bible and come to the church we would be working at so we could talk more about Jesus. To my surprise, she was there the next day! She came with her Bible in hand and siblings in tow. She plopped down next to me on a rock, opened her Bible and said, “So, what are we going to learn about Jesus today?” From there, she would come back to the church and want to talk about God as a Father, she asked for prayer and I was able to speak to her about her value in Christ.
Towards the end of our time in that township she stopped coming as often, so I was surprised to see her the last day we were doing ministry there. She came up to me, threw her arms around my waist and with tears in her eyes said, “Thank you for telling me that I’m beautiful and that I do have a daddy still.”
We leave the One who is Love with them and that’s what everyone truly needs.
Leaving is never easy, but we have peace knowing that what we leave behind is so much greater than what we could provide out of our own love. We leave the One who is Love with them and that’s what everyone truly needs.