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.
