LOVE 4 THE CHILDREN

Heiio! I want to tell you about my trips to Smilovichi in September.

About 12children were admitted to the shelter. Moreover, half of them are from 3 to 5 years old.Therefore, during this period we had to adapt and think about how to divide lessons and games for seniors and juniors so that they would be interested. Of course, we decided to divide the lessons, but for now we are doing the games together. Of course, it’s not easy with kids, but with God’s help we can handle it. It’s much easier to work with older guys from 7 to 14 years old. If the lesson with the elders goes on as usual, we told them about who Jesus is, about what the

Bible is, and then followed the parables of Jesus. You can’t tell the same to junior kids that easily. I think it’s hard to attract, but they also all run away and constantly offend each other, there are usually about 7 of them. But God gives wisdom and we try to sing songs with them with movements about God and Christ, play games along the way, exhorting them not to offend each other and try to obey the elders and take with us a special cloth with pictures and figures from the Bible to show and explain the essence of the lesson on it. From the little ones, everyone is different, someone like Dima and Zhenya and Darina Jr. sit quietly and are obedient and even remember, and when you come again, they sometimes remember what the main truth was last time. Some of the little ones are constantly playing pranks and not listening, for example Timofey, Sasha and Kira.

But we admonish them, and it even happened that Sasha and Kira were taken to the orphanage teacher because they completely violated discipline and disrupted the lesson. But the next time they behaved much better, apparently this kind of punishment affected them and it made it easier for all of us. The kids are very much climbing into our arms and hugging – this is a special blessing from the trip when you can just hug them all and tell them that Jesus loves them and we are here to tell you about Him and make friends with you.

We hug the older ones too, but not so much and often, after all, they have already grown up and are no longer children, but they are more obedient and calm for lessons, although they often get distracted at first, but thank God they have already got used to us, made friends with us and listen to us. I was very filled with how we read the parable about the lost sheep in the Bible with them. After we read every line together and I explained everything to them in order what it all means and how it relates to us, they began to ask me a variety of questions: is my grandfather also resurrected? And those who are in heaven, will they see those who are in hell?

And when will there be a resurrection from the dead? And when will Christ come? And everything like that,unfortunately, I no longer remember all the questions exactly, but I remember how on their faces it was clear that they were thinking and reasoning and it was kind of serious, and I was so happy for them that they took the words of the Bible seriously and that they apparently believed that Christ was really true and He really You’ll be back soon. And also that He loves us and weneed to come to terms with him. We prayed then both before and after lessons, in principle, as always, we pray for our visit first in the car before going to the shelter, at the beginning before the games, at the beginning before the lesson and at the end after the lesson. I am grateful to God that there is such an opportunity to visit children and tell them about Christ.