Day 5: HBC - Day 1

Acts 26:18, "To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me."

Today was the start of Mallow Bible Fellowship's Holiday Bible Club, and we had such a great start! From 2-5pm today we had the opportunity to share our lives and the word of God with 126 children ranging from 5 to 12 years old. This year the church did not provide transportation due to some new laws, so we were pleasantly surprised that the decision did not impact the number of kids that came. More than half the children were back for their 2nd time, and we still had several that had now come back for the 3rd year! It was such a blessing to see these children again...

Similar to the messages for the teen camp, this week the children will learn about the Lord Jesus Christ - his birth, his words and works, his death and resurrection, and his disciples. By the end of the week each child would have had heard a clear presentation of the gospel. In the previous years we found in incredibly difficult to teach some of the children for 2 reasons... 1) Many of the children have been very unfamiliar with the bible or even how to use a bible; 2) Since many children have had nearly no exposure to the bible, we found it difficult to teach lessons that were focused on a bible character, correlate those stories to Jesus and the gospel, and then correlate everything to their lives. Since these two things were challenges to us in the past 2 years, this year we decided to focus completely on Jesus Christ. Today alone we have seen many children be more receptive to the lessons. We even had one girl in the oldest class approach one of the leaders and ask, "So what do I need to do to be born again?" Praise God!

Please keep praying! We are a few things to be praying specifically for...

1. The hearts of the children to be soft towards the gospel and the bible lessons
2. As we continue to plow, that God would use our words and actions to impact the lives of the children in any way he desires
3. That our team would be humble servants, able to be flexible as we try to tweak and fine tune the overall HBC structure

-Stephen