Let the Little Children Come Unto Me!

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March 22nd 2008

Published: March 22nd 2008

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Richardsons

The Children's Seminar at Hannah's Nursery School

“Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do his commandments.” 1 John 5:2

Have you ever sat back and noticed as the words of the Bible started to become real, right before your eyes, and you could see God at work in what you were doing and know that it was good? In everything that has been happening these last couple weeks, it has just further proved that our God is in Control, and no matter what troubles or trials the devil throws our way, when we have our heads in the word, our hearts in His love and our hands busy with his work, that the devil just can’t get a grip on you. For two weeks now, we’ve had guests here working in various areas and so many of the little things have gone wrong all around us, but in the midst of it all everything seemed to point back to the scriptures in my head. The words began to step off the pages and apply directly to each and every circumstance going on. I think I have pulled more strength from the word this month than I have in

Let us become like little Children...

a very long time, and it has done my heart good to see God’s hand in all that we are doing, and how good overcomes evil in every battle that wages against the soul.

Philippians 2:15 “that ye may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world,” We’ve been letting our lights shine with the children of Boma Ngombe this week. We’ve just completed our week long Children’s Seminar at Hannah’s Nursery school and at the Joy Foundation Orphanage in Boma Ngombe. Where we’ve been able to teach the Bible each and every day to over 150 children. We’ve headed out that way, which is a 30 minute drive, each day this week to work with, and teach at the nursery school children in the mornings from 8:30 to Noon, stopped for a quick bite to eat and then headed over to teach our Bible Lessons and Songs to the children at the Orphanage in the afternoons. Each day the children would sing, “this little light of mine” in swahili and smiles from ear to ear as they twirl

The Painting Crew

We painted all the classrooms

their little arms up in the air with their lights all proudly held up for everyone to see.

We had an amazing group to come and join us in this work from Marble Falls, Texas Greg & Kris Neill brought over 4 young adults: 3 college aged and 1 Senior in high school to spend their spring break week here serving the Lord rather than serving themselves and that just barely tips the iceberg on sharing with you a little of the character of these wonderful students! There was a ski trip being planned back home for the same week as this trip to work with the children in Africa, and these guys chose to come and do all that they could to glorify God in their actions. They’ve truly set forth the example from 1 Timothy 4:12 to “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” Their energy and excitement with the children brought the word to life and they saw the love of Christ this week in each and every lesson.

Lu 18:16 But Jesus called them unto

Our Guest Teachers from America

Marble Falls Group.. With Greg & Kris Neill, Staff Members from Camp Blue Haven

him, saying, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for to such belongeth the kingdom of God.

This week the children learned more Bible then they had ever been introduced to before. It was amazing to sit and watch their little eyes light up as the Bible became real, when it was acted out right before them. One of my favorite songs they sing at the nursery school as they are marching around the playground is walking in the light. It reminds me that what we are doing is good and pure, and that these children are being given the opportunity to grow up knowing the love of Christ and are being taught it in repetition each and every day at their school, what a great blessing that is to see that the children attending this school in particular are being taught from such an early age to Walk in the Light. 3 John 1:4 “Greater joy have I none than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.”

Each day we would gather together the 5 classes out in the playground to close the day with a large group Bible

And Jesus said to the winds and the waves...

"HUSH and Be Still"

Study and our young guests would act out the stories as Greg stood before the children teaching them the scriptures. They acted out the stories of David & Goliath, The Good Samaritan, and Daniel in the Lions Den, but then on the last day the children said they wanted to act out the story themselves. They had wanted to imitate what they had been taught all week! (how amazing is that to your surprise to hear the children say, let us teach you a story about Jesus) Eph 5:1 “Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.” They gathered together the older class of Standard One students and 12 of them formed a little Boat circle and one of the student’s named Honest stood outside the boat, while all the younger nursery school children stood in the background to create a storm by stomping the whistling, waving their little arms as big as any mighty wave could… Then Jesus entered the boat, asked the 12 disciples why they were afraid…. He took his arms and with a big “HUSH” and arm movement he calmed the storm… And I tell you what, getting 86 little Tanzanian children to Hush and

Callie Donaldson

Teaching the Prep Class

be still, all in unison, is almost as great a feat as any miracle I’ve ever heard of… (just kidding of course, but you teachers know what I mean!) But it was just precious and the fact that they took what they had been seeing and learning from and created a lesson on their own, made the week worth every bit of effort thrown into it! As I know it touched the hearts of our visitors to see their desire to mimic and copy their good works!

While they were here we made good use of their zeal excitment and energy and got the paint brushes and rollers out to paint all the classrooms with a bright fresh new coat to get the school looking better. It turned out great! We found that the teachers had been glueing their posters to the walls, so getting them down we ended up tearing a few, and had to have a poster making party at our house that evening to replace the ones we had torn. But we had a great time and everyone pitched in to get it all done in just one afternoon after we had finished teaching the children.

Nathan GoodNight

Teaching the Babies Class

The school also purchased 5 new desks this week to allow the children room to stretch out some... but now the building is full... no more room for desks! Shelves will be coming next. They have been ordered and are being built!

Many times we emphasize the importance of teaching our children at home, holding the VBS once a year for the children we know and love right near us, and this is a good thing! Teaching and building up the knowledge of God’s word in the lives of our children is the most important lessons our kids will ever learn. It’s usually one of our kids favorite weeks of the year, and if we can find another congregation near us, holding theirs at another time, we like to go and join them in theirs as well. But, If you would do me this one favor… This year as you gather together your supplies and after your finished using what you’ve ordered or put together, take those stories and teach them again…Somewhere someway, Put together a group of young teenagers and go out into another community around you and put them to good use! The one thing that

Emily Helping teach the Prep Class

I hate to see is all the preparation work thrown together to hold our week long VBS and then for it to be over so soon and the supplies put to the shelf. Or take your left over supplies and send them into the mission field somewhere in the world! It doesn’t have to be Africa, but there are children all across this great world, needing to hear the Good news of Jesus, and in these areas, the flip charts and crafts don’t have to be anything amazing…The lack of readily available supplies means that anything will work and it can all be used again and again but I guarantee that they will be cherished for years to come. John 11:52 and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God that are scattered abroad.

As I walked into the Orphanage the other day as we first arrived to begin teaching there I went back into one of the rooms that sleeps the younger children, to find my sweet little Naomi, sitting on the bare concrete floor eating her bowl of plain rice squished up between her fingers with a

Little Naomi eating her rice

On the floor in the room where she sleeps at the Orphanage

huge smile as I broke the doorway, she pointed straight up to the wall, where she had so proudly hung her Bible Craft from over a year ago when we had done little Lion masks and told the story of Daniel during a one day seminar there. Where do our children’s crafts end up after a VBS or Bible School class? I know mine, are held onto for a while, and if I don’t gather them up and keep them somewhere safe, they are quickly torn and lost, or thrown away in the excess of things throughout the house. But in a blank walled little room with four tiny bunk beds, there on the wall was a Lion mask and scripture verse about praying to God, and just next to it another child had nailed the cross to the wall from the previous week’s lessons with the Oklahoma group here, where we taught 4 lessons in one day at the orphanage. It truly just makes you melt inside, I don’t know any better way to describe it! Each day after we sang our songs with the children they would begin singing to us the songs that they knew from memory,

Callie & Chad

Teaching the Kids new songs about the Jesus... "If you love Jesus..." A great team!

and each day they would sing the Daniel was a man of Prayer song that I had taught them in that children’s seminar last year…(which to be honest I had even forgotten the words to at this point, but they cherished them so much that they have continued to hold onto the words and sing them daily, and know them in their little hearts!) Now you tell me if that’s not scriptual I don’t know what is! Visiting and teaching these little children is building up the future generation of Christians in this Country from an early age, knowing the Bible and the love of Christ in their lives is making a huge difference!. James 1:27 “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” There are no toys here, there are no books here… just a place to rest their heads and desks to sit in and learn from a single blackboard and chalk, and over 80 little smiling faces committing everything they learn to memory….a small wooden kitchen and food to eat.

How often do we read the

Before painting

words from the text rather than actually living them out?
I wish I could have shared this week with each and everyone of you personally, because it has changed me for a lifetime. I will continue to do what I know is good and know is right in the sight of God, and serving here in Tanzania, sharing with the people of this amazing country the Gospel of Jesus Christ, at all ages from the youngest to the oldest, from the most loved to the orphans and the widows, from one village to the next, and they continue to teach me in all humility what life is truly about and how God intended for us to show love one unto another! The Lord is blessing His work here in East Africa in a mighty way. We continue to see new growth and that is daily encouragement. It’s never all sunshine and Roses, no work ever is, but it’s the root of the blessings that make it holdfast and true to the word f God. The winds may come and the rains may pour in the lives of these little ones but The word of our God that they have learned

After Painting

this week, will last forever! “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever.” Isaiah 40:8

May the Good Lord Bless you and Keep You
In all that you do bring Glory unto Him!
Love In Christ,
The Richardson Family

Just a few more Verses that came up in my personal studies this week:

Ps 82:3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

Ps 146:9 The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.

Zec 7:10 And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.

Ex 22:22 Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.

De 14:29 And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.

De

Little Sweet Jackie..

Writing her name for the first time... (she has Downs Syndrome)

16:14 And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.

De 24:19 When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands.

De 24:20 When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

De 24:21 When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

De 26:13 Then thou shalt say before the LORD thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy