God's Lesson Plan

One of the ways God has blessed us with an open door to speak about His goodness is through the teaching of different holidays.  Last week Junanita and Amber taught Easter, and God did some amazing things.  This morning Curt was set to teach Christmas.  Since Curt's class comes to Jori's and my (Katie) class next, we prayerfully realized that we may be called upon to answer questions regarding the real Christmas story.

 

That un-folded in a way that we could never have fathomed.  Vernon (the other college student; Curt's TA) came into our room and said due to unforeseen circumstances they didn't finish the Christmas story.  Could we just sumarize the end and field questions?  Of course.  Our planned lesson had flopped first period anyway.

 

So I quickly skimmed the reader's theater script they had been doing and asked the students where they got in the story: Jesus had been born and the magi were asking Harold where they could find this new king.

 

So I sumarized the ending, being relatively brief figuring we had a whole different lesson to teach but not being too brief to as to miss the point.  Then Jori and I welcomed questions.  Boy did the questions come!  We did not even touch on our planned lesson but rather spent the entire class time answering questions.

 

What happened next?

Why did God choose Mary?

Was Jesus a king?

So were Mary and Joseph His real parents?

Joseph was king, right?

Jesus was killed, right?

So Jesus is a god?

Three Gods?

Does God still speak through dreams?

My mom prayed for her toothache to go away and it went away.  She try to persuade me, but I am not persuaded.

How do you make decisions?

Did Jesus talk to special people?

Was Jesus rich?

How do you believe something you don't understand?

What is faith?

There are some people at my school who have that same religion like you.  They're different.  I can see it.  They're calm, generous, and loving.  Always calm.

 

We were flabbergasted.  So many questions don't have pat answers.  So many questions were answered directly by the Holy Spirit speaking through us.  As soon as the class left, Jori and I joined hands and prayed until tears filled our eyes.  It was all an incredibly humbling experience we were excited to share with our team at lunch.

 

But God wasn't done.

 

A short while later in my (Amber's) class, without knowledge of anything that had occured earlier, Juanita and I held what we thought would be a normal class.

 

We were talking about love languages and were discussing the love language of gifts. Juanita had an empty gift bag which she used to ask the students what they most hoped was in the bag. Some said money, food, books, pictures, etc. However, we had one girl in the last class that said she wished a Bible would be in the bag. I immediately was on the edge of my chair, just waiting for the end of class.

 

I had been given a New Testiment in Chinese/English to give out. I knew it was for her. As soon as class was over, I walked up to her and asked her again if she was serious. When I confirmed she was serious about wanting a Bible, I handed her my NT. She at first refused because she felt bad. But after I insisted, she got misty eyed and accepted it with the biggest smile I have ever seen. She was so grateful and so excited. I also connected her with another woman who attends the local church here. It was amazing!

 

Today, the rain has been almost nonstop. Therefore, our group sat around one classroom waiting for the rain to stop. This is when God put the puzzle pieces together, revealing himself to us. I told my story from class and the gift of the NT. When I showed Katie and Jori the picture of the girl and I, those two became giddy! Katie proceeded to explain their class. We were praising God together! It had been a rough morning for some and we defintiely felt Satan trying to attack our team. However, God trumped Satan and made today an AMAZING day!!!

 

God is good all the time.

 

Love,

Katie and Amber (with Jori, of course)