LCMS World Mission Blog

“I just arrived home after our weekly Friday Night Bible Study. It was bittersweet as it was our last one for the semester, and there were quite a few ‘see you laters’ said for the summer. Friday Night Bible Study is one of the highlights of every week. People junior high age and up gather together at our church to sing praises and then study God’s Word together. I usually work with the adult/beginning English group and have made some good friends through these weekly studies. Two ladies in particular have said, ‘Well, I’m not a Christian yet, but I would like to learn more about Jesus.’

“This week in my fourth grade Bible class, we had a guest speaker – Jackie – a friend of mine who just graduated from college this year. She had first heard about Jesus as a junior high student and was baptized last year. One of the other missionaries had invited Jackie to speak to some other students, and I followed suit with my class. I was amazed at how well my generally unruly group of students listened to our guest share about how she came from a family who practices traditional Taiwanese religion, but that she heard about Jesus at Concordia Middle School and started praying to Jesus. She shared about how she also learned more about God when she started going to Friday Night Bible Study. At this point, one of my students who was completely engrossed in the testimony interrupted, ‘When can we go?’ I was moved by the student’s eager desire to know more about Jesus.

“Later during the class period, I asked each student to write the answers to four questions: 1) Where did you first hear about Jesus? 2) Who was the first person to talk to you about Jesus? 3) When did you start to have faith in Jesus? and 4) What has changed in your life because you know Jesus? All but three of my students wrote that they had first heard about Jesus at the Concordia kindergarten or Concordia English Language Academy (CELA). Though I was sad to see that a number of them wrote that they did not believe in Jesus and that nothing had changed in their life, I was joyfully surprised by many of the students who wrote that they did believe. One told me about the day in first grade when a friend of his at CELA told him about Jesus and he believed. Before he shared that, I never knew he believed! Praise the Lord for the faith that He can grow in hearts both young and old!

“The response that made my heart fill with even more thanksgiving, however, came from the same student who had interrupted Jackie in class earlier. This girl had written that she began to believe Jesus in first grade. In response to the question, ‘What has changed in your life because you know Jesus?’ this student wrote, ‘First, I don’t know what changed in my life. Now I know. In the first, I don’t like my life. I get mad or sad and I want to die. But now, I don’t want to die. I want to help people believe in Jesus! Just like Jackie.’ One boy in my class had troubled me recently because he adamantly denies faith in Jesus and even plugs his ears when we sing during Bible class. His parents have shared with me about how they go to the traditional temple and they pray to different gods. I was glad that I had the opportunity to talk with his family and get to know them better, hoping I might have more chances to share Christ with them.

“A couple weeks ago, because of an outbreak of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease at one of the elementary schools in the area, this boy was not allowed to come to class for 10 days. I sent his work home and one assignment included using a Chinese-
English New Testament. When this boy returned to school, he asked me if I had given him the Bible to borrow or to keep. I told him that it was just to borrow since it was the school’s, but that I would get him a new one that he could keep. He seemed pleased at this response. With the help of the religion office at Concordia Middle School, I was able to get a whole new set of New Testaments and handed them out in class. The day I was going to hand them out, this boy had to leave a few minutes early. After he packed his bag, he came over and looked at me expectantly. Then I realized that I hadn’t handed him his Bible yet. He joyfully received it headed out the door.”