He Already There

Nathan's Serious Searching. Nathan egg-hunting during Easter earlier this year. He's finally found the most precious thing after all.

Betty and I continue to praise God for His remarkable work in answering our prayers 3 out of 3 that our children, Anne, Elise Joy, and Nathan would accept Christ as Savior. Anne accepted Christ in 1998 when she was over three years old, then Elise Joy confessed belief in 2002 when she was 4 years old. Nathan is five years old and starting kindergarten and now, his time of salvation has come.

Last week, on September 7, Wednesday night, Nathanael made his decision to accept Christ as Savior. Mom was there to pray with him and answer his questions (Unfortunately for me, I had gone back to the office to work on preparing for Awana). But Betty relates what happened:

Nathan asked her about going to heaven and seeing Jesus. Mom answered that he would not be able to go to heaven. This was because he was a sinner. Nathan said: "I know the classroom rules, but I can't do it." Nathan started kindergarten last month and had been bringing home a rather colorful behavior report folder. It seems all the colors that could be there were present, whereas his two older sisters had brought home "boring" folders. To motivate Nathan, we had promised a reward if he could get five "greens" in a row.

He turned to Mom and said, "I know I'm a sinner. I want to believe in Jesus." Nathan had heard the gospel before. In fact, his older sister Anne had told him how to pray a year ago, and he followed her prayer. But when we inquired whether he had prayed, he said he didn't. Apparently it was only to comply with his big sister. However, this time, he was ready to pray for himself.

Resisting the Dark Side. Nathan, Anne and friend Priscilla fights back against Darth Vader at Legoland (San Diego, CA). Nathan and I refers to getting a "red" in his kindergarten folder as getting a Darth Vader. The goal is to come home with a "Luke Skywalker."

After he prayed to confess his sin and believe in what Jesus had done, Mom explained to him what the Bible said about assurance. She asked him if someone were to invite him to believe in Jesus again, would he do it? He answered matter-of-factly, "No." Then he added, "He already there."

Amen.

Family Ministry

Returning to Our Roots. Helping out at the NTCC camp was a deja-vu kind of experience, bringing back memories of serving the kids of the same church seven years ago. But most of the kids I taught back then are now in college and have moved on.

Labor Day weekend was historic for our family. We went up to Princeton, TX to help with the children's program of North Texas Chinese Church retreat. This was not the first time my wife and I had helped with this church. We did it before in 1997 and 1998. Only this time we were setting out to do this as a family—with Anne, Elise Joy and Nathan as our co-workers in the ministry.

Anne was assigned to help Mom with the preschoolers (2-5 year olds) while Joy would assist me with the elementary kids. Mom was using Lil' K curriculum, while I used Kidmo (www.kidmo.com) in our main teaching sessions. We had 10 sessions to work with the kids, from Saturday morning till Monday morning. Five would be teaching sessions, and the other five would be activity sessions with sport stacking (formerly called cup stacking).

Anne and Elise were extremely excited that we considered them mature enough to be helpers, and they made sure that they were helpful. Although, later on, Joy abandoned me to help with the preschool class. Their class had a lot more fun, it seems.

Great Helper. Elise Joy helps two-year old Christina learn the basics of stacking.

I had asked Nathan to help with the lightswitch but wasn't quite sure what else he could do. He found his niche though, in helping the younger preschoolers go to the bathroom, making sure they had a chair to climb to wash their hands, and in taking care of those who were younger. He showed real compassion by looking out for the younger kids.

NTCC Kids Building a Tower. The biggest hit of the weekend was the sport stacking, as the youth and children spent their free time stacking and building and stacking and building ...

Betty and I were quite impressed with the NTCC youth and children. The preschoolers were very much interested in the lessons and did not present any discipline problems. Isaac seemed reluctant to sit still at first, but when Betty told him clearly that he had to listen to instructions, he fit right in. The older children and youth were respectful and followed instructions as well.

The elementary kids really enjoyed Kwizmo and Memory Max: The Competition (some more than others) and look forward each time to the sport stacking sessions. They divided into two teams and competed to see who could build the fastest pyramid or cocoon. The team who cooperated together came out first both times. But then came the big competition—Stalagmites. Each team was required to build a minimum of 19 towers with the cups they were given. Then they were to stand in a line to protect their towers. The teams took turns throwing a large ball trying to eliminate the other team members and knocking down the towers. You had to catch the ball cleanly or you're out if the ball hits you.

We also used Toybox Tales (www.toyboxtales.com) as an intro to the lessons, which the kids enjoyed a lot. It was fun seeing Kermit, Ms. Piggy, the Kingpin, and the Terminator taking a departure from their normal roles to act out lessons from God's Word.

The weekend seemed to end pretty quickly for something so busy. Not long after it all began, we were driving back the six-hour trip to Houston.

Awana Is Back

Awana 2005-2006 began last night at Fort Bend Community Church. I don't have a photo of this year's group of kids yet, but here's a photo from last year's Truth & Training Club.