After trying a few different things for our Bible Times, I settled on using our pastor's Sunday sermon summaries as the basis. The students read the bible verses from the church's bibles in Japanese, and then I read them the verses in English. There's a lot of vocabulary that is difficult for them to read in Japanese let alone in English as the names of places and people are all unfamiliar to them. The pronunciation is usually pretty different too, so I read as they listen.
I don't usually ask them to do this, but last Wednesday, after we read the verses in Japanese and English, I asked them to read the sermon summary to me. I had missed Sunday service that morning as both of our girls had funny tummies :/ It's difficult for me to read on my own, so I took notes as they read it to me. As I was driving home and thinking about our Bible Time that day, I realized how it was exactly what had happened in my life just that week and decided to share about it the following week.
Bible verses and stories are powerful. They are, after all, the Word of God. However, the stories often feel like fables or folk tales and verses often don't feel relevant. But connecting promises of God given to us through His Word with real life stories of someone they know, especially when they've been part of the experience, are very powerful.
This is the story I shared with them...
~ A Day in the Life of
~
The
passage
Acts
18:9-11
9 During the
night, Paul had a vision. The Lord said to him, “Don’t be afraid, and don’t
stop talking to people. 10 I am with you, and no one will be able to
hurt you. Many of my people are in this city. 11 Paul stayed there
for a year and a half teaching God’s message to the people. (Easy-to-Read
Version)
The
story
In the early hours of Thursday, April
12th, I woke up to the sounds of Jiyeon throwing up. I caught some
in my hands but it overflowed onto our blankets. Just after Peter and I
returned to bed after cleaning up the mess, Juhee woke up feeling uncomfortable
and then threw up. Soon after, Jiyeon threw up again! This pattern continued
till about noon that day. They had very little appetite so didn’t eat much the
entire day and had very little energy. The next day, neither of them threw up,
but both of them had diarrhea. They were slowly getting better, but they still
weren’t 100%. In the evening, our friend, Ethan, arrived from Dallas, Texas, to
spend time with us.
On Saturday, we had our first ever English
Robot Programming Class. I had to stay home with Jiyeon so I couldn’t go. I was
so sad! I had been looking forward to it for months! I was so thankful though
that Juhee was feeling well enough to participate as she’d been looking forward
to it too. Both Juhee and Sungjae had a great time and Ethan was glad he was
able to take part too!
In the afternoon, we had a Baby Shower
planned at our house. After lunch, Peter went upstairs to nap Jiyeon while the
rest of us continued to prepare our house for our guests. Everyone had a great
time! Until… We were just about to take a group photo when Sungjae went
missing. Peter found him curled up in the bathroom in pain with a stomachache
and a fever. Oh no!!! I couldn’t believe it! Juhee and Jiyeon were finally
getting better, and now Sungjae was sick!
On Sunday, Sungjae and I had to miss
church because he was still not feeling well and had a fever. We had two
friends from America joining us at church and we had a fun afternoon planned
digging up bamboo shoots at Ryoko’s. I really didn’t want to miss it! Peter
said he would stay home with Jiyeon and Sungjae while I went with our three
friends from America and Juhee on our adventure. We had such a great time! But
poor Juhee threw up many times on our way home.
I was hoping that Juhee and Jiyeon
would be able to go to school / daycare on Monday. But they were still feeling
tired, so all three kids stayed home. I was starting to panic because I still
had so much to prepare for the start of English classes on Tuesday but hadn’t
been able to work at all since the previous Thursday – eek! And what if Sungjae
still wasn’t better? I couldn’t not go to church on Tuesday
afternoon!
Thankfully, Juhee and Jiyeon were
feeling better and so they finally went to school / daycare on Tuesday morning –
yay! Thank You, God! But just as I’d feared, Sungjae was still not feeling well
so had to stay home. And then, I realized something. Ethan is here! Ethan can
stay with Sungjae while Peter and I are at church! Praise God for Ethan being
here! His timing was so perfect!
While I was at church busily preparing
the payment envelopes and watching the students, someone came by and said
“Hey~”. It was Chanyoung, the young man who had helped us with our Tuesday
classes last year from May – December. I’d forgotten that he’d said that he was
going to drop by! Wow! So perfect! He watched the kids while I busily finished
preparing all of the admin I needed to. I was able to complete everything I
needed to, just in time!
Wednesday afternoons are one of my
favorite times of the week as I chat in English and Japanese with a wonderful
group of ladies. We talk about things that are happening in our lives and discuss
the previous Sunday’s bible passage and sermon summary too. The sermon
summaries are difficult for me to read and I wasn’t at church on Sunday, so I
asked them to read & explain the summary to me. As I slowly came to
understand the sermon, I thought “this is great! What an encouraging message to
remember!” It wasn’t until after the class was over that I realized God had
just shown this to me during the past week.
There was no way that I could have
known that I would be in such a difficult position on Tuesday. It wasn’t even
something that I could pray in advance about. Life is full of situations where
we might feel trapped, but God, who loves us and cares for us, tells us to not
fear, for His people will help us. He literally showed that to us on Tuesday –
Chanyoung had planned weeks ago that he would be dropping by and Ethan had been
planning this trip for months! He also showed us that His people are indeed in
this city (like Chanyoung), but also in other cities too (like Ethan), and that
God brings many of His people, all around the world, to help us to continue
“talking to” and “teaching God’s message to the people”.
Our life, our every day, is evidence
of God’s Word being true. We don’t need to be afraid or worry, because God
tells us we don’t need to. Why? Because He promises multiple times in His Word
that He will always be with us. His Word is just as applicable today as when it
was written, thousands of years ago. He uses Scripture to encourage us and
counsel us. For this I am thankful.
More
verses on this topic: Genesis
26:24, Jeremiah 1:8, Deuteronomy 31:6, Psalm
54:4, Hebrews 13:6, Isaiah 41:10, Hebrews 13:6, Psalm 46:1
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| God-sent helpers - Ethan taking the selfie, and Chanyoung with Sungjae on his lap |
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| Handouts |
After we finished reading my "A Day in the Life of" together and I answered all of their questions ("What's "eek!?", "When do you use "/"?", the different uses of quotation marks, capitalization when referring to God / Him / He, etc), I pulled out last week's Bible Time handout (and they all followed suit) and read the last few sentences to them again. It was so wonderful to hear their very audible oh~s and ah hah~s as they saw the connection between Scripture and real everyday life.
Thank You, God, for always knowing what we need and for always providing help for us, even before we even know that we need help. Thank You for helping us in times of need, even during those times we feel too weak or too flustered to pray. Thank You for giving me this opportunity to share Your goodness through my life with my wonderful students. You are an amazing Father, our awesome God! :)
