A Modern Day Gideon

Yesterday God reminded me, again, He is working anywhere we stop and look for Him.

A note to all who read this, Team Three's theme this week...what we are constantly bringing up in every conversation, is "Choose Life"...specifically from Deuteronomy 30:19. In everything we do we are talking with the children about making the BEST choice...the BEST decision.

Today, Doina, one of our beloved translators, and I took a few distracting young boys away from a girl's group. We walked down to a bench and started a conversation --about nothing really. As I wondered where our conversation would go I looked up and saw a little boy named Nicu (about 9 or so) who had earlier prayed with Bill Lovell to accept Christ.

I called him over and his friends followed. I took his tiny hand and asked if he had made any decisions today that he wanted to tell us about. He thought for a minute and then told me he was going to leave camp that morning and decided to stay. I laughed and told him he had made a good decision.

As we continued to talk he told us the sweet story about how he and Bill found themselves in a place where Nicu made a choice to know God. It was an great story.

I asked the other young boys squatting in our tight circle if any of them had made decisions like Nicu. A young blue-eyed boy with dark wavy hair began to share a story with us. It's probably the greatest story I've ever heard from a child and I want to share it with you.

He shared that he was alone (except for a few friends he wasn't paying attention to) in his cabin and he made the decision to ask God to come into his heart and live there forever. He told us he prayed for God to do so and to make him happy and to never leave and to forgive him for the things he did that were bad. When he was finished praying he said he didn't feel much different than before the prayer...so he wondered if he had done it right.

So, in order to check this out, he decided to perform a test of sorts. He told us he took a piece of paper and rolled a marker up in it. He prayed again and told God he would blow on the end of the paper and, if the marker came out, it would tell him his prayers had indeed work. If not, well...I guess he might have continued to pray until he felt an earthquake or something.

Petru blew on the piece of paper (boy was I anxious for the verdict....). The marker blew out of the paper and he said he felt different and took all of this as affirmation that God had heard his prayers and was now living in his heart.

I asked Petru if he had been reading his Bible today and he told me he had been reading in Luke. I invited him to come find me the next day so we could sit and read the Bible together. I asked our little circle if anyone else had made decisions like Petru.

The wild little boy next to me had been noticeably calm for this conversation and suddenly he began to tell me he had thought about this before but had never asked him. I encouraged him with the statement that maybe God would let him know He'd like for him to make that choice this week, and if so, to find one of us and ask us to pray with him...or, to pray on his own and tell one of us if he did so. His name is Radu and he asked if he could find me tomorrow morning and pray with me. Please pray for him and whatever God might be speaking to him.

Below is a picture of our new little brother, Petru, and the illustration he gave us of the paper and marker he used. Praise God for this little guy...and for the many others who are and will make decisions this week.