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| Jaire reading the evangecube for the first time |
During the week of clinic I worked with the children's ministry (like I said in my last post). Most of what we did, we did through translators. None of us could speak Spanish well enough to communicate fully, but on Thursday after a fairly 'normal' morning we were told that we would have to do the afternoon without a translator, because all the translators were needed elsewhere in the clinic. The idea of ministering to the children without an easy way to communicate was rather daunting to say the least. One of the other girls on my team suggested that we get together and pray for the afternoon. So we did. We asked God to help us share Christ with the kids even through we couldn't speak their language. We didn't know how He would do it, but we trusted that God would help us.
The afternoon started out a bit rough. Explaining how to play a game would be a game (of charades) in it self. We still didn't have a way to share the gospel with these kids, until we found the instruction page for the EvangeCube, which is a cube with pictures that go through the gospel message. The page has suggestions of what to say along with each picture and it had it in English and Spanish. We started the cube by trying to read the Spanish on the paper ourselves, but our pronunciation wasn't very good. Then we had the idea of letting some of the older children in the group read the Spanish. So we asked them. One of those willing to read it was a ten-year-old boy, who had just came in with his younger brother. His name was Jaire and we quickly found out that Jaire could speak English It was incredible! He became the unofficial translator of our group - his English wasn't prefect, but it good enough to communicate. He finished the cube and then helped us explain games and communicate with the other children.
After most of the other kids left we got to talk with Jaire. He told us about his family, that he and his mother were Christians and they both attended the church where we were holding the clinic. Then he told us that "Jesus was not in his father's heart". We asked him if he wanted us to pray with him for his father. He said he did. So, we sat there and prayed for Jaire's family. I prayed first in English, and then Jaire prayed in Spanish. As he prayed, I looked up at him, even though I didn't understand most of what he was saying I could tell he was being sincere. Sitting there I was greatly encouraged, not only by Jaire's reverence and passion for God, but that moment made me realize How great of a God we serve - between us humans there was a language barrier to get around, but with God it doesn't what language you use, you don't even have to use words and understands and cares deeply about what you are telling Him.
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| Jaire Sharing the cube with a friend |
Later while we were cleaning up and getting ready to leave, Jaire picked up the Cube and played with it, flipping through it over and over again. He seemed very interested with it. Abby, one of the girls on my team told him that he could keep one of the smaller versions of the cube if he let her teach him how to use it. He agreed and Jaire left that day with the cube eager to share Christ.
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| Ricky- one of our unofficial translators |
The next day we were told that we didn't have a translator at all for that day. Although everything went well the day before, I was feeling a bit apprehensive about the day, because it was a whole day of ministry without a translator, but not only did Jaire come back and help us, he brought one of his classmates, Ricky who also knew English . Jaire told us that he had already shared the gospel via the cube with a couple people and was ready to do it for the group of children we had that day, and he did. He and Ricky were tremendously helpful that day and God used them in great ways.
