The Weekend is Here!

It is Friday afternoon, the end of the week has finally arrived.  School dismisses, and it is the weekend!  For many students this means rushing home and not thinking about studying for at least 2 days.  However, if you walk past the Education Office on a Friday afternoon on the Mission, the previous description would not be accurate.

You will notice kids in school uniforms standing outside the door of the office.  Some children are quickly reading over pieces of paper.  Others are filling in answers on their worksheets.  What is all this study for on a Friday afternoon you may ask?  It is scripture memory and Bible lesson check-in day!

At the start of the 2010 school year BHM missionary Darlene Winn shared with a few students she went to church with that she would be starting a Bible lesson and scripture memory time for students on Friday afternoon if they would be interested.  Two years later, through students sharing with their friends, there are more than 40 children who WILLINGLY come to the Education Office each Friday afternoon with a completed lesson and memory verse ready to present.

The Education Office is far from quiet for about 1.5 hours as the students file in and present their work.  After the completion of a lesson the child is given a lesson and verse to work on through the week and return again next Friday.  These are evangelistic lessons that teach about who God is, why we need Jesus, and how one can go to heaven.  The lessons are typically 4 pages long and have questions to answer and a scripture verse to memorize.

"There are always fun things that happen when meeting with the students on Fridays," said Darlene.  "One week a question from the lesson asked the students to write down the name of their enemy.  The correct response was Satan.  One little girl presented me her paper and had written the name of one of the girls from her school in the blank."

You never know with students what their responses may be.  Darlene tries to ask many questions to each student about their work on Fridays.  It is important to ensure the children are not just repeating, but learning biblical truths.

There are 2 different courses of work for the children to do.  The first course is 10 lessons long, and the second course is 7 lessons.  There are many students who have completed each course.  Even after completing all the work they have asked if they could start over from lesson 1.  Darlene allows this, after all, it never hurts to review what you learned before!

Pray for the excitement of the students as they dig into God's word and come every Friday afternoon.  Pray that they would learn and apply the truth's they are being exposed to.  Thank God today for children who are being educated to read and write and are able to understand first hand the Word of God!