Let me tell you about a 6th grader I'll call Kay. A year ago, I had never met this girl with a winning smile and an astute mind. In June a friend of hers invited Kay to come to church. She came for a few weeks and then attended our VBS program at the end of the month. During that week, she came to understand her sin and her need for forgiveness and she trusted in Jesus. During the summer she came to camp with us and the past few months she has been one of the most faithful students in our youth group, attending every possible youth meeting and small group meeting.
One of the awesome things about Kay is that she is a learner! She's not embarrassed by the fact that she doesn't know the Bible stories most church kids take for granted, but she is eager to catch up on them by reading her Bible regularly. Last week she set a spiritual life goal of reading her Bible and praying a certain number of days out of the week and came back saying she went OVER her goal, because she was excited about what she was reading. :-) A few weeks ago, I referred to a common Bible character (Moses, maybe?) and when she didn't know who I was talking about, one student said to her incredulously (and rather rudely), "Are you serious? You don't know who that is?" She retorted, "Hey! Give me a break, I'm new to the Bible!" Another week, two girls had planned a trivia game for our youth group activity time. Kay represented her team and received the challenge to quote John 3:16. She didn't know the verse, and felt bad when other students on her team responded with "C'mon"s and "That's an easy one!" A couple weeks later John 3:16 came up and she jumped to her feet and started quoting it. "I know it now," she quipped, "I learned it that night when I got home."
Kay is a great thinker, and therefore a great question-asker. When we talked about salvation and Heaven she raised her hand at the end of the lesson: "I have three questions," she laid out, "First, what happens to people who don't get a chance to hear about Jesus? Second, what about people who are handicapped and can't really understand?" [She has an autistic brother.] "And third, what would happen if a pregnant woman didn't believe in Jesus, and she died but God knew that the baby in her would have trusted in Jesus if it lived? What would happen to the woman and the baby if they died before it was born?"
One of the things that brings me a lot of joy is teaching Kay--because she gets it! Her quick mind gets to the point I was hoping to make before I even make it. When I'm teaching and I ask a question, I might call on six kids who have ridiculous answers, but Kay's answer will always be dead on. Often she'll say what I wanted to say, but she'll state it better than I could have! One night we were talking about something and I could tell I wasn't making much sense to the group. I tried to re-explain and then asked their confused faces, "Does that make any sense?" A couple of the kids stared at me with glazed-over eyes but then Kay answered, "Yes! It does! That was one of the things I didn't get before, but now I get it!" She then proceeded to reexplain what I had been trying to say, but had failed to communicate. Suddenly the other kids were nodding their understanding. When Kay explained it, it made sense to them. :-) I love the look in her eyes when we're reading a passage of the Bible and suddenly she makes a connection. Her eyes light up like the proverbial "lightbulb" moment, and I can see that she is understanding something new about her faith.
Tuesday night Kay and I were driving down the road and talking about technology. She observed how it seemed like technology that was supposed to make life easier (cars, computers, etc.) seemed to cause a lot of frustration for people [this came up because my car was making odd noises]. I agreed, and then pointed out that technological development brings both positive and negative results. "For example, instead of taking weeks or months to communicate with people at home, missionaries across the world can now email prayer requests to their friends and family and have people praying for them within minutes! But at the same time--the ease of communicating without ever physically interacting with people makes it so that the internet generations are less able to see other people as individuals, and have less personal communication skills." "Kristi," she told me, "that's one of the things I'm really going to miss about you--you always make me think about things differently." That's how I feel about her! Please pray for Kay. She's very apprehensive about youth group ending. "This is the only place I've ever learned about God!" she exclaimed, "I don't want to go somewhere where I don't know anyone!" I reminded her that when she started coming to our group, she didn't know many of us, but she's still worried. If God leads me to stay in the area, I would LOVE to keep meeting with Kay to read through the Bible with her. She teaches me so much as I watch her fresh response to the Word of God.
On Tuesday, Kay gave me a Christmas gift. We've been studying the fruit of the Spirit in our small group, and she told me that when she saw this engraved piece of glass, she thought of me. I was delighted! It's sitting in my living room and whenever I look at it, I'm reminded of two things: (1) No matter what is going to happen next in my life, I can rest in the peace that God gives, and (2) God is faithful to work in the hearts of people, causing them to draw close to him! What a privilege and blessing it has been to be able to witness him working in Kay's heart!
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