A Hunger For God's Word

Kiberenge, the village where we have a Compassion in Action (CIA) Bible study, has a mixture of Muslims and Catholics. I had no idea 2 years ago when we first started this Bible study how hungry these kids really were. Every week around 30-40 kids would come and attentively listen to Bible stories about David, Abraham, and Jonah. They wanted to know about God, but until we came, no one would teach them. This last week, my brothers and I decided to start a Bible study called Quest for Truth for Kids (based on Quest for Truth by my dad which I edited for kids) so that the kids could have a clear view of the gospel. Zeek teaches the younger kids (ages 1-11) Bible stories and I teach the older kids (ages 12-15) Quest for Truth for Kids. After church today, Zeek and I hopped on my new moped (that a sweet family bought for me!) and started our journey to Kiberenge.

The first lesson of Quest for Truth is called “What is religion?”. After explaining that religion is anyone’s belief about God, we got into an in-depth discussion about religion. Out of the twelve kids, 6 were Catholics, 2 were Muslims and three were “Christians”. I started asking questions about all of their religions. After asking all of the kids which religion was going to heaven their answer was simply: all of them. “But,” I asked, “What does the Pope and the Koran say? Do they say that all religions will go to heaven?”

“No,” a Catholic girl answered, “only Catholics.”

The Muslim kids both responded in the same way regarding the Koran. The poor misled kids told themselves that everyone was going to heaven because they didn’t know which religion was true.

Then I asked them all, “So who is right? Is Islam the true religion, Catholicism or is Christianity?” None of them answered. “Who here is assured 100% that your religion is true? Who has no doubt in your mind?” All of the kids looked at the ground. After asking them each individually, no one could assure me that theirs was true. They all just replied with a simple, “I don’t know.”

“Then how do we know what the right religion is?” a boy asked me.

“We can’t know,” said a Catholic girl, “unless someone went to heaven and asked God and then came back to tell us.” All of the kids nodded in agreement.

“Can I tell you guys a secret?” I asked. All of the kids gathered around closer. “Did you know that thousands of years ago God gave us a letter telling us the truth about himself? He wanted us to know him! And know the right religion!”

“Where is it?” they all asked excitedly. I replied by explaining that the next 15 weeks we are going to study a book that will show us that letter from God and tell us what the true religion is. We don’t have to die to know what the truth is

, because it was made available to us through His Word. I wish that you all could have seen the joy on these kids’ faces when they heard that God has given us the truth about Himself. They had no idea! Until 2 years ago, no one had ever told them that the Bible is the Word of God, and it didn’t seem to even click until this afternoon. They had never read it for themselves and had never heard the good news of how God loved them and gave His life for them.

Please pray for us as we teach these kids the good news of the Gospel, and pray that God would prepare their hearts to accept it.