Posted By: Grace Konrad
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Training this year was a blast, I was so sad to leave, but I’m excited for the summer ahead! God has already been working in amazing ways, and I can’t wait to see what He does next! For the practice club this past week, we had no kids on the first day and we were all pretty discouraged, especially because we had felt that we did a pretty good job of advertising. We did some more advertising though, and at one of the houses the mom said that her daughter might be interested in helping. We gave her an invitation, and who knows, she might end up teaching! Anyways, on Tuesday we had been praying a lot for kids to come to the club and had had a lot of positive responses from our advertising on Monday. There was a much more positive spirit in the car as we were trying to trust God, whether or not there were kids. The night before, I had read an encouraging scripture, and I read it as we drove to the club. It was 2 Chronicles 20:12, 15, 17 “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you… This is what the Lord says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s. You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.’” Later, while they were praising God, their enemies basically started killing each other. This passage was just so encouraging to know that God is in control, and it’s not our advertising or anything that we do that will bring kids or spread His Word in the neighbourhood. It’s only God, and He will take care of it. Unfortunately, there were still no kids at the club on Tuesday, however on Wednesday God answered our prayer! Joy had been praying specifically for three kids and we had exactly three kids! That club was fun, however, I still felt that the kids were not completely engaged with the Bible story and memory verse. Afterwards, we played with them a bit and on Thursday, there was another kid and after the Bible story, there were two decisions to follow Jesus! It was incredible to see how God provided kids for us to be able to teach, and also how He prepared their hearts to receive the gospel! Praise Him!
Thank you for all your diligent prayers brothers and sisters in Christ. ^ ^
I came to the training for the second week right after I resigned from my job. It’s a big decision in my life and probably this decision will change my life direction. Even right now I cannot see next steps, but I trust God will do something amazing this summer and HE have a good plan for all of us!
Because God is good, HE will keep faithful from the beginning to the end.
Last week In Regina, I stayed and taught clubs with two sisters. Their interaction with the children really touched my heart. Especially their acceptance and love to the children. So I started asking God to change my heart and my attitude. I want to make 180 with Jesus as our theme this year.
In our club, we have two decisions. One boy and one girl. Both of them are really keen to learn God’s words. They were excited about the verses we learnt in the club. The boy asked us to underline the verse we learn. Their pure heart to seek God really touch my heart.
And also in one day, when we talked about sins like stealing etc, the girl who accepted Jesus told us she did some thing like that before. Her boldness to admit her sins and not cover her sins really touch me. She didn’t pretend she was a good girl, however, she is willing to come to Jesus to ask forgive her sins. That’s really make me rethink my relationship with Christ. Have I denied something wrong with my heart and not wiling to admit?
Praise The Lord for what HE has already done in these two children’s heart and for what HE will do in this summer. I am looking forward to the next week teaching and for what the Lord is going to do.
I really appreciate your prayers, because I found myself very easy to feel discouraged and anxious about obstacles and unexpected things. Yesterday, because of the misunderstanding with my Bank, I found that the documents I need to sign will be delayed to next week. I will away from Saskatoon to Lanigan to teach clubs next week. So I really pray that God will work it out for me and this thing won’t distract my attention to teach clubs.
And also tonight, I will drive to Lanigan alone. I never drive long distance by myself. Please pray that I will be there on time and find my way safely.
The battle belongs to the Lord. Let’s put on the full armor of God and stand firm in HIS promise. Amen!!
Posted By: Quin Sawatsky
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Hello everyone! It’s great to be back for another summer of 5-Day Clubs, and I’m excited to see how God this summer, especially through these clubs.
This first week of doing clubs in Regina has been pretty sweet. I had the opportunity to be teamed up with a couple of first-year club teachers, Will and Jon, who did a great job teaching! The first day of our training week club, we had only one kid, which made for an interesting club with us teachers way outnumbering our club attendees.
However, the second day, this kid brought four of his friends. It initially looked like we were going to be back to just one kid on the third day, because these four told us they weren’t going to be coming back. But God brought them back the next day, and they consistently came showed up again the remaining days of the club.
On the last day of our clubs, one of these kids who had said they weren’t going to come back raised his hand when we gave the invitation to accept Christ, and we got to lead him in accepting Christ! So of course that was the highlight of the week as well as the cause of celebration on our trip back from the club. And that’s the overview of last week!
I could really use some prayer for my next week of clubs up in Wetaskiwin. I am teaching on my own and am still trying out how to figure out little details like how I want to be making the stories engaging for the kids and how I’m going to teach actions and hold up the words for the kids to see while we’re singing… so please pray for wisdom!Pray that I will be running on God’s energy/strength instead of just my own. And pray that He will speak through me to change kid’s lives with the incredible news of Jesus’s love and the salvation He offers them.
And for those who are praying for me: thank you so much! There’s no way that I can do this on my own, but with you supporting me through prayer, and with God on our side, it’s going to be an amazing next six weeks.
God Bless!
-Quin
Posted By: Gwyneth Sichangwa
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I’m back for my fifth year of teaching and I am so excited. This past training weeks have been lots of fun, and I had the privilege of being billeted with some awesome girls. In all my years of teaching I’ve never been billeted with other teachers because for a while Grace and I lived in Regina then we just found our own billets. It was encouraging as we prayed for one another, and shared our stories with each other. I’m really sad that we’re leaving but I’m also excited to head out and teach for the next couple weeks.
So during the first week Grace was sick and she ended up passing her sickness to me. So all of this past week I’ve been battling this cold. I was suppose to be teaching a training club at Olivia’s house and I did the first day. (My first summer I taught at her house and I taught Olivia so it’s pretty cool that I finally got to come back.) But the day after I completely lost my voice. ): I was pretty upset because I LOVE to talk and share my thoughts and especially because these girls were great. At a point I had to use a small whiteboard in order to get across what I was saying. So throughout most of club I had to sit in the back and evaluate Zam, Anya and Olivia. I found that during this time I just talked to God more because I couldn’t really communicate as much to people. So before club I was praying for the one girl who hadn’t accepted Christ to come back for Wednesday and to make that decision. It was awesome because she came back and she made a decision. Everyone was so excited about what God was already doing, and it really has made us all egar to go out this summer.
So I got my voice back on Friday and I was able to teach once again. Now throughout the week all 5 girls at the club tried to invite people but they couldn’t find anything. So I told them that if 2 girls were able to finish 2 more lessons before we had to go, then they could soak us. After club we waited for them to finish and when one girl ran to us with 2 lessons they were already filling buckets with water. Then the other came with 4 lessons. They were so excited to soak us and they got to do that for 5 minutes. It was good that it was a hot day then, but I have never seen girls that egar. The moment we finished Grace came and told us it was time to go. But it was a great way to end the club.
Even though I got my voice back it’s still bothering me so I could use prayer for that. For this upcoming week between Grace Grace. K and myself we have 2 full itineraries in Edmonton. We have lots of clubs and because I have a full itinerary I really need my voice. Also I want to take the time to thank my CeeGee for praying for me all of this summer. You have prayed for me for many summers and I’m so thankful for the dedication that you have put into this ministry by praying. (:
I’m looking forward to a great summer because I know God will do some extraordinary things this year.
God Bless,
Gwyneth
Hey everyone!! I am so excited to be back teaching for my fourth summer! I know God is going to do amazing things as I have already seen him working this very first week we taught.
I’ll give a quick rundown of my whole week. I missed the first week of training because I was in Mexico on a missions trip with my church, so our flight got in on Sunday night around 8:45ish. My family always billets for training week so I got home to a houseful of wonderful girls, some of whom I knew really well, some of whom I’d never met at all, and some in between. We had an amazing week together, calling ourselves the Mile Squad and giving ourselves ghetto nicknames. So thankful for those wonderful ladies that I got to know even better this week.
Monday morning was also super awesome, getting to see everyone at training. I was supposed to teach the practice club that afternoon with Gwyneth, Anja, and Zam, but another worker was sick and couldn’t teach, so I went with Jean and Cecily to fill in for her, and we ended up with a decision! We were really surprised and amazed at how quickly God began working.
Tuesday, Tiara was better and so I went back to teach the club at my house. My 4 sisters who are old enough were in the club, and Wednesday, Thursday, and today, another little girl from across the street came.
Wednesday, that little girl actually accepted Christ too. It was so exciting to be a part of that, as I see her around my house a lot, playing with my sisters. It’s encouraging to know that she will have people around her such as my sisters and parents and I, to be available to help her in her walk with God.
Anyway, for training week, I’d say the summer started off super successfully, and I have to give all the glory to God because I know that nothing I did persuaded those kids to accept Christ, as I had just arrived home from Mexico and hardly knew my stories or memory verses yet.
I also have to thank God for helping me to learn those stories so quickly 🙂
Next week I’m off with Sarah to Strasbourg and Sask Beach with a three-club itinerary. We’re teaching and being billeted at my Grandma’s house though, so that should be super fun. I can’t wait for this summer to get officially started.
Thanks so much to everyone who is already praying!
Posted By: Crystal Durell
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Hey! This is my first blog post this summer! Also my first year teaching. WOW!!! I’m super excited to be teaching this year (as well as cautiously optimistic). So much stuff has happened over the first two weeks of the summer, but we’re out of the gate and ready to go into the world/province/mission field.
So fun story of my first week (ever.)
First day, three newbies face a block of 20 kids. In my head, I’m thinking ‘uh oh’. We were in an area with a lot of apartments. The town house we were situated in was owned by a ministry teaching English to immigrants. They went ahead and did most of the advertising, and it was crazy how many kids showed up the first day. Interestingly enough most of the kids were from Muslim families. Some of them came up for decision time, but I’m not so sure they understood exactly what they were doing, so we didn’t really mark them down. Some of the kids didn’t even speak English that well, so they might have been distracted too. We were very excited for day 2, but only three kids came (and they were from a church). We tried to understand what was going on, a child told us that someone (either an adult or older boy who everyone looked up to) told all the kids not to come. This was a bit discouraging, but not unexpected. That night, I prayed for a miracle (not really sure what was going to happen, but it felt like something I should pray for). The third day, we had 11 kids. We were really happy to have some of the kids back, but some didn’t stay for the whole time. As the club ended, and some snacks were being handed out, our hostess informed us that Ramadan is going on. (the Muslim time of fasting and prayer) We realised that the kids were going home because they had to pray, but they were having so much fun and wanted to come, some of them convinced their parents (or something like that) to let them come. I guess God did answer my prayer! (BTW face painting is really fun!)
Day 4 was pretty uneventful, but we were finally getting used to things. No decisions. Day 5, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was on bible story (which is the story of Saul) and I wasn’t really prepared to the best of my ability (God answers prayer BTW!!!). There were the two church kids that were there all week, and two Muslim boys. Since I was on Bible story, it was my job to deliver the invitation and I was determined to preach my face off. Apparently the story was good (because God answers prayers. Praise the Lord) and I poured everything I had into that story, and when I gave the invitation I tried my best. One of the boys put his hand up, slowly and unsure, but as I continued he wasn’t wrinkling his nose and he seemed more sure. He didn’t come talk to me afterwards, (I should have said ‘if you want to know how come see me…’ but I didn’t). Andra said I should pull him aside and talk to him, but the boy’s Mom left, and took the two boys with her.
Prayer request- I need more practice.
Other than that, I think the club went pretty good. I’m super excited for the summer and I can’t wait to see what God has in store!
Shout out to my two awesome partners Jenny and Andra!
God bless! Peace out. :3
Kids Quotes: the part of the blog post where Crystal posts funny things that kids have said during club.
1. Kid 1: After learning that when we ask Jesus into our hearts, we are like family with other believers. High fives his friend beside him and with the biggest smile says-
“Brothers!”
2. Kid 2: When asked what would he do with $30 000
“I would buy everyone a minecraft account so we could all play together”
Kids are so funny XD
Have a nice day!
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