Youth Night!

It’s almost dark and I finally get my fire to a full blaze with help of a little kerosene. (I know I’m a cheater!) I go inside my kitchen and make the popcorn on my camp stove as I hear the voices of Merafu and Lobia already around the fire.

 By the time the popcorn is salted and and transferred to a big blue bowl, there are six youth which in the next hour multiples into thirty-five, twelve to twenty-one year old's laughing, singing, eating popcorn and talking outside my Hut. Oh yeah, it’s Friday youth night!

 

 Youth group officially started just three weeks ago. It’s been amazing! Many of the youth who have come are the junior counselors and older kids from the camp we had in June.

After a game of UNO or watching a bit of the ‘Sound of Music’ everyone has arrived and gets as close to 

the fire as possible, then we begin to look into God’s word together. The past few weeks we have been talking about what it means to be a believer/ follower of Jesus. 

 I turn my head lamp so that I can see the notes in my Bible and begin to talk about the cost of following Christ. When Jesus said “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” to his disciples, they left everything behind, gave up all, stopped living for this world and followed Jesus. And He made them ‘fishers of men.’ Their lives radically changed from the medial to the radical, from the necessary to survive to the purposeful life of trust, from a life of ability and control to one of suffering and complete reliance!  To be true follower of Jesus in Didinga culture (Well, in any) is very costly and yet precious beyond belief!

The hunger for God’s word among these youth, at this time, is just incredible! Many of them are involved in three different Bible studies every week and eager for more!

The other night around the fire I heard of few of the boys talking about what they learned at youth night, the subject that night was sexual purity, so hearing these teenage boys talk Joseph who ran from Potiphar's wife and about how they could be pure made me smile at the work God is doing in their hearts! 

Pray for these youth, who at this time seem so hungry for truth, pray for them!

And pray for me, that I would share God’s word accurately, passionately and effectively and not be afraid!