Life Lessons 101

Wow, life has been a crazy whirlwind lately!! I went to Yakima with my youth group last week to work with Habitat for Humanty for a week, and it was an AWESOME experience!! I was able to serve God and His children through my hard work (despite my sun-burned, or roasted, legs and arms :p), get to know other kids from my YG a LOT better, hang out with the youth group of the church we were staying at, and have a flame reignited in my heart, mind, and life for my God and His word. I could talk for hours on this, but I have more to cover, so I won't... 0:)

Then, starting this last Monday morning, I worked as a Travel Guide in my church's VBS program. A Travel Guide is a leader that sticks with one age group over the 4 days and works with the individule kids. This year the theme was an Amazon Jungle Adventure, so we learned all about the Amazon and the animals there, made animal/bug/jungle crafts, played topic-related games, and sang fun songs with motions like:


"Pack your Bible, grab your gear, get on-board cuz we're outta here!
Down the river, through the trees, the jungle waits for you and me!
Come along with me to the amazing Amazon!
What things we'll see in the amazing Amazon!
No need to fear in the amazing Amazon!
Jesus is here in the amazing Amazon!"


This year I got to work with the Primary group (K-1st grade completed), and it was amazing to see the love and innocence (or lack thereof in some) that these angels held in their precious little eyes! But I learned a LOT through working with them from how to explain the Gospel to a 7 year old girl to seeing things in their most simple and beautiful nature to actually getting things out of the Bible stories that other adults told the kids over the week! In the way of the stories, one gal told the story of Elijah and how he went to the widow and asked her for water and bread. Now, who knows how many billions of times I've heard that story!

Basic plot line is this: Elijah is in hiding from an evil king, there's a famine in the land so he goes in search of food/water, finds a widow gathering wood and asks her for a drink and some bread, and turns out she only has about a handful of flour and a little bit of oil left. In fact, she just happened to be collecting the last pieces of wood so she could bake up what little flour and oil she had left into bread so she and her son could, as she told Elijah, "..have our last meal and then die.." basically. But he insists on her baking him some bread, so she takes most of what she has left and bakes him the bread. Now, this is where it got interesting..

Whenever I've heard the story in the past, they always tell it that she went back to bake the last few bites of bread for her and her son, and when she reached into the flour jar... Wait! It's FULL!!! Flips the lid on the oil can... It's full too!! In fact they're BOTH overflowing with flour and oil when before she had been basically out. Now that's nice and all, but I *really* like how this lady told it! She said she pictures the widow going back and reaching in and finding a full handful of flour, but not much more. She's totally blown away tho because she *knew* she didn't have more than half a handful there. And same with the oil! There was just enough to make what she needed for that day. :) And every day she came back, there was miraculasly enough flour and oil left over to take care of her, her son's, and Elijah's needs. I really like the sound of that, oddly enough, because instead of being overwhelmed and possibly spoiled by the over-abundance, the three of them were blessed by constantly having *just enough* to supply for our needs! The Bible says His blessings are sufficient, not not wasted. Didn't God tell the Israelites to gather just enough manna to get them through the day and no more? I really like the thought of my God being sufficient to supply my needs. :)

Anyway, enough for tonight. Right now my needs are a good night's sleep after 2 weeks loaded with hard work and short amounts of sleep. :p So sleep well all of you! :) God bless, and may you experience God's devine sufficiency in your life throughout this week!

Much love in Him,

<>< Christi <><