Girl's most prized possesion? Her new Bible!

Part of my job as Good News Club Coordinator is to work with the personnel that teach the GNCs. It is so great to watch someone come into teaching a GNC with the intent on teaching for the kids' sake but end but being ministered to through the teaching of Good News Club. I recently received an email from one GNC teacher that I want to share with you.

"The club at Wood View was wonderful, and I thought I'd better give you a little update. We had 8 kids enrolled...the kids came...with lots of questions and I made one girl very happy. Last year I never got my hands on some Bibles to pass out, and I already knew the kids that were dying to get a Bible for over a year. Mrs. Zierman...brought a giant stack of Bibles. I gave one to Kiara who had something like an overview of the Psalms that she was reading, and that's all she had. She was very happy to get her own New Testament. I gave one to Akayla too. Akayla has always been GLUED to my Bible. She'd come back to counseling just to get ahold of it. I had never really got an answer from her if she had a Bible, but I got one yesterday. She had she had a preschool Bible that she could read in about a minute, so I gave her a Bible....She couldn't believe that it was really hers, so I put her name in it, her face glowed. She spent the rest of club thanking us and hugging it. I made a little girl very happy yesterday."

God is doing some great things. Let's pray for Kiara and Akayla that their excitment about Jesus will continue and blossom into a strong relationship with HIM. I will never grow tired of hearing or being apart of stories like this.

Kids love singing about the Good News

In Good News Clubs, there is not a lot of time for song time, so when we sing a song because it has a good teaching message, not just because the song is a nice song. One song that is often sung in Good News Club is "Good News Good News." I visited the GNC at Aux Sable Elementary School recently and was thrilled to see how much these kids love singing about the Good News of Jesus Christ. Don't believe me, then see for yourself in this video that I took. It brings a smile to my face each time I hear them sing it, because for them this is more than a song. The truth of this song is now the core of each child belief system, because each child in this club has received Jesus as Savior!

Distractions in a Good News Club

This week I visited a Good News Club held at an elementary school in Bolingbrook. On a normal Monday, the GNC meets in the Library. However, this meeting of the club was moved to the cafeteria where we shared the room with an after-school day care program. I have been in some very difficult club settings in my day, however this one was quite challenging. It is not the children at the club who are difficult, but rather the distractions. The distractions at this club were so many that I shot this video to show you. (Readers of my blog will note that the most challenging club I was teaching is shared in a blog post "Doing a GNC in a consession stand." ).

In this video, the GNC just got started and the teachers are beginning with the song "I have a friend who really loves me." Listen to the noise and distractions. (Note the loud noises you hear are not from GNC). For the first half of this GNC, it was difficult to teach in. But eventually it calmed down. The major point I want to make is that the people teaching GNC's, just like myself, are so dedicated to getting the Gospel to these kids that we will not let anything stop us from completing our God-given task!

If only

Someone sent me this recently and I just love it. If only people would read God's Word and pay as much attention and excitement to Him as we do billboards

"Takin it to the Street"

Yes, we are "takin it to the street." We are taking Good News Club flyers to the streets. Four school districts in our chapter do not allow flyers, for GNC or another outside group, to be distributed to students. This makes getting kids to come to our GNC after school more challenging.

Well recently, we went, on the advice of Liberty Council, went to the parking lot of a school at dismissal to pass out flyer to parents as they drive in to get their children. I must admit I went to do this with fear and trepidation. I was thinking, "Would we be allowed to do this? Will someone stop us? Will parents take these flyers?" We made plans to go, copies the flyers, and attached candy to each flyer. Then we were went to the school with two of our committee members. We prayed and then took it to the streets. I was amazed to see this working. Parents stopped and took the flyer. We ended up passing out over 50 flyers to parents in cars that day. I was watching in amazement at God working.

With the pressure of denial of distribution of flyers coming at us, we are meeting it head on and taking every possible opportunity to get the word out. So far we have done this at two schools. One school showed no results from this and the other showed a fantastic result of more kids attending a club. So, yes we are taking it to the street. We will be doing more of this in the future in an effort to get more children to hear God's Word and then give them the opportunity to receive Christ as Savior.

Update on Elijah

This week, Elijah came in and told us that he knew his memory verse Matthewy6:33. We were excited, of course. Elijah said, " I lost my paper with the verse on it." Each week we send the kids home with a verse token which has the week's memory verse on it. We asked Elijah how he memorized it if he lost his memory verse token. Elijah said, " I used my Bible that you gave me." How awesome it is to see kids opening and using their Bibles. Elijah was able to do this because he had a Bible and we are teaching the clubbers how to find a verse in the Bible. We found that the kids in our GNC don't know how to use a Bible. Elijah does now! This little guy and others like him make this ministry so rewarding.

Elijah: Portrait of a Life Changed

When Elijah first came to Good News Club, he was very quite and shy. For several weeks of GNC we barely heard one peep out of Elijah. Then two weeks ago, Elijah responded to an invitation to receive Christ as his Savior. After being counseled, Elijah prayed to become a child of God! My teaching parnter and I were so excited for Elijah. As I have said before, sometimes you can tell immediately that a child meant business and is now God's child and sometimes you just don't know. Well that day we left it in God's hands.

God has shown us what He is doing in Elijah' s life. The next week, Elijah came back and said the previous week's memory verse word perfectly at a fast pace. At the end of that week, we pulled Elijah over and gave him his first ever Bible. My teaching partner said now he had a Bible. Elijah, looked down at his feet and said, "Well actually my mom says we have a Bible somewhere in the house, but she's not sure where it is." Elijah knew lying was a sin and he could not lie to his teachers. God is working in Elijah's life! He is truly God's child. Each week we watch him grow more and more in his faith! Elijah is a changed little boy! To God be the Glory!