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Vacation Bible School is a week from Monday and I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity to teach seventy children about the Gospel of Christ.  There are many parts of VBS that I love

1. Seeing the excitement on children’s faces as they answer a Bible question for their team correctly
2. Listening to boys and girls recite their memory verses
3. Watching the child go from disciplinary problems on day one, to model students on the last day
4. Hearing them loudly and excitedly sing songs of praise to God
5. And most of all their coming to a saving knowledge of Christ

There’s a lot that I love about VBS (one of my favorite times of the year) but there is at least one part that I dislike, and that’s the craft.

Actually “dislike”doesn’t accurately describe my feelings about VBS crafts….hate does it much better 🙂

Please understand I’m not saying crafts don’t have a place in VBS (they definitely do) or disrespecting someone who has artistic abilities (I definitely don’t have them).  Instead these crafts are an absolutely necessary, but incredibly frustrating part of ministry.

This personal frustration comes from the fact that I’m not good at them, but there are other frustrating points as well

1. In a place like SVG its necessary to come up with craft ideas and put them together on your own since it takes too long to have them shipped from the US
2. Dealing with different age groups means having three different “levels” of crafts that have different degrees of difficulty
3. There needs to be at least three different crafts for each level group (some can be used at all levels, currently we have five planned for VBS)
4. And of course anytime you have seventy kids working with paint or glue the risk of a catastrophe taking place is very high

To be honest if it was up to me and my missionary co-workers (none of whom are artists) we would just eliminate VBS crafts altogether and make some excuse (there was a serious popsicle stick shortage on the island).  But we are committed to doing the frustrating parts of ministry as well as the exciting ones.

there are many exciting and fun parts of ministry that fits with our strengths.  For me that would be teaching, children’s work, counseling, and writing.  However other parts of ministry are boring, emphasize our weaknesses, reveal anger and pride, result in failure, or show our need for help.  Those are the parts we would be happy to just do without…but they are also opportunities to grow spiritually.

You see God uses those frustrating experiences to remind us just how much we need Him, and break our pride in personal achievement.

The header pic of this post is my first attempt at creating a horse prototype for our VBS craft this year.  The idea was to have a nice color of purple on the bottle, then add legs, eyes, and horse mane the next day.  We never really got to that point since my bottle looked so ridiculous (paint never dried correctly either).  So a second prototype was created using construction paper instead, and after some work it (sort of) looked like a horse.

The thing is it would be easy to build a ministry only on the things I’m good at like preaching or children’s work and make sure nobody ever sees one of my purple horses.  But I continue faithfully knowing that God gets great Glory from purple horses.

Yesterday after almost two months of waiting I was finally able to purchase a car in Saint Vincent.  It was at the same time one of the most exciting and frightening experiences of my life.

1. Exciting because it gave me a lot more liberty and freedom
2. Frightening because it means I’ll be driving on Vincentian roads again

When I came to St Vincent the one thing that scared me more than anything else was definitely the driving.  Many of the roads aren’t that much bigger than a lane in the American roads, which means you need to occasionally drive through tight spaces. Driving was made more difficult by road construction, and some roads only being big enough for one vehicle (if you meet one you have to reverse down that road).  So it shouldn’t be surprising that I preferred walking to driving even when the Church van was in my possession 🙂

With the Lords help my driving got better towards the end of the six-month ministry  in March 2016.  But the truth is I hadn’t done any driving since then so part of me worried about getting behind the wheel for the first time in almost five months.

To make things more interesting I would be driving the car back from town (Kingstown) after paying for the ownership to be transferred.  Town is without a doubt the busiest part of Saint Vincent and it can be very easy to make a serious mistake driving there (I refused to drive to town for over three-months last year because it scared me too much).  

After the title and insurance was taken care of I was feeling pretty good about myself walking with the original owner to pick up the car till I found where it was located.  He had brought it to public parking, but parked it at a far corner that was surrounded by other vehicles.  So instead of backing straight out or driving forward I obeyed the commands of a parking attendant very poorly (making myself look like a moron in the process) and almost put a dent in my car before getting it out of the parking lot!

After dropping the owner off I was able to collect my thoughts and didn’t have any issues (okay I was beeped at twice and made two wrong turns).  The more interesting thing is about a mile outside of town I started to enjoy driving…this may not seem important but I can’t remember the last time I ENJOYED driving on a Vincentian road!

Part of that enjoyment comes from the fact that my car being lower to the ground than the Church van gives me a better view of my surroundings, and it can squeeze into smaller spaces.  But in a deeper sense I believe all of the practice during my short-term ministry made driving much easier now.

Yesterdays experience reminds me how anxiety from past failures or challenges can affect us from attempting those things in the future.  To be honest part of me even yesterday would have been perfectly happy walking everywhere instead of taking the risk of making myself look stupid, or have a traffic accident, however once I got out on the road all that anxiety melted away.  

While my driving record surely won’t be perfect (pretty much every Vincy vehicle has at least one dent) I’m grateful for the reminder from God that yesterdays anxiety doesn’t have to affect todays actions.

One of the greatest challenges in ministry (particularly missions) is being surrounded by darkness.  I’m not referring to physical darkness of course but spiritual darkness of people’s hearts who don’t know Christ.  Thankfully the Lord provides Christian brothers and sisters who help bring the light of the Gospel into the world, but sometimes the surrounding darkness overwhelms, and we begin to feel as if we are the only light.

Often this overwhelming experience is connected with an attempt to lead someone to Christ or discleship them in the faith, only to see them reject the Gospel, or fall back into sin.  Putting our time, energy, and prayers into someone only to see darkness prevail ( Of course sin cannot overcome the Gospel but God allows individuals to choose their own way) can be a very frustrating experience.  In those moments we must remember the light of the Gospel is still doing its work even if we cannot see it.

Often God chooses to bring changes into a person’s life one step at a time instead of all at once.  In these situations the Holy Spirits conviction along with God’s Truth stabs small holes into the darkness…holes of light that we may not be able to see without paying very close attention.  So every once in a while He allows use to see the Gospel poke through the darkness of an unsaved persons life.

Last week I was at the Church when one of the children came by and said “Mr. John (name omitted) the thiefed (stole) your dollar!”  Evidently the day before I’d left a one dollar coin in my bag that’s used for Bible club, and he had grabbed it while my back was turned.  Knowing it had to be dealt with right away I locked up the Church and immediately walked over to his house.

On the way over I was praying the Lord would help me get a confession from him.  As most of you know getting a child to admit they did something wrong is difficult, and getting a heart-felt apology is almost impossible without physical discipline.  The truth is the dollar didn’t bother me, my main goal was getting him to admit wrongdoing.

He was standing near the house so I immediately asked him to come over so we could talk.  Slowly the boy started towards me but suddenly his sister walked over with a dollar in her hand and immediately paid me back (he had already spent the dollar he stole). She then stood by as I asked him questions and when he didn’t respond sternly said “answer the man!”  Later on that day his mother APOLOGIZED TO ME for her son taking the money, something that has NEVER happened before.

Please understand my point here isn’t that Vincencians are wicked people who think stealing is okay (they aren’t). But I’ve learned from experience that the first response of a parent is defend their child, or downplay their mistake, not publicly apologize.  And siblings don’t naturally back up authority figures in today’s culture.

For me that was a moment I could  see light poking through the darkness.  To my knowledge none of that family is saved, but the Holy Spirit is working in their hearts, and uses situation like last week to show their need of a redeemer.  

This week I sat in Church with that same little boy and we talked about Gods standard for entering Heaven being perfection.  “(Name omitted) are you perfect ?” I asked, and he immediately answered “no!” Now I’m not sure if thiefing my dollar had anything to do with that answer, but he has come to a point of knowing without the help of Christ he cannot be saved…and that’s definitely a point of light poking through the darkness.

Evangelism and discipleship are hard because all we can see is the darkness….but in those moments we know the Gospel is poking unseen holes into thier darkened hearts.

During the school year my ministry with children had a very well-defined structure since they would come by the Church for Bible Club after school at 3:00.  Occasionally we would play a game or have another story later, but everybody knew things started at 3:00.

As you can imagine the summer schedule is a lot more random, so although the kids promised to still come at 3:00, nobody did. Of course I don’t blame the kids for this because they are no longer around the Church at that time, but the fact that summertime doesn’t really have a set schedule makes ministering to them difficult.

After thinking and praying about how the Lord would have me reach the children of Barrouallie during the summer months He led me to make a difficult decision….

And I made the Church my office.

During the school year most of my ministry work [1] would be done at home because it offered privacy

1. That privacy also meant I could focus my attention on things without being distracted [2]
2. Allowed me to work freely with all of my tools (laptop, books, electronics) without worrying about them being taken
3. And I was even able to rest or take a quick nap if needed

When the Church became my office the privacy was taken away since anybody walking by can see the doors open (yes I can close the doors but keep them open for ventilation purposes, it helps make things a lot cooler). And of course there are challenges with this loss of privacy since it means my sermon prep or Bible study in the morning is constantly interrupted. But in a deeper sense sacrificing my privacy is a blessing hands control of my ministry over to God.

For the first week after school I tried to find where the children went during the day and give them Bible stories there, invited everyone to my house for a Bible club, and wore myself out trying to minister to them…but by the end of the week was frustrated, but physically exhausted.

It occurred to me that weekend maybe instead of trying to “find the children” I should focus on things like Bible study and writing at a place where the children can find me.

Since starting this four to five kids come by every morning for a Bible story, and I’m able to have a conversation with them about the Gospel. The funny thing is this ministry is totally random since they come at different times almost every morning, but the Bible stories have a much greater impact because instead of teaching ten kids (and trying to keep their attention) I’m looking one or two of them right in the eyes.

There is a sense where kids come to play my tablet (they get two lives after the Bible story) but I truly believe the come because God sends them, instead of my finding children and bringing them there myself.

There is a need for privacy of course which is why I am only at the Church during certain hours (9:00–12:00 AM, 3:00–5:00 pm). While kids do come by the house often I will tell them we can’t do anything till later, and my time there is closely defended, especially 1:00–1:30 because thats nap-time 🙂

The Lord is helping me see theres a place for privacy in ministry, but also a place for leaving the doors wide open.  Those open doors then give God an opportunity to bring the people he wants into our lives

Yesterday around 4:30 a man walked into the Church while I studied the book of Mark and asked about our prayer meeting on Thursday night. He sat down and we ended up talking for about 45 minutes about the Gospel, and where he would spend eternity (the man knows Scripture but isn’t truly saved). After we prayed together and he left I thanked the Lord for my loss of privacy because he wouldn’t have come to my house and asked that question, therefore I wouldn’t be able to share Christ with him.

There is a place for planned ministry but I’m grateful for the opportunity sometimes the greatest thing we can do is leave the door open, and allow God to bring who He wants.