The last couple of months our senior pastor has been
teaching/preaching on the fear of the Lord and the conscience. It’s
been profound and the Holy Spirit has been stirring all of us. However
the momentum hit a crescendo in yesterday’s service as God showed up in
powerful and authoritative ways. While I could share some of those
stories with you, I am not sure that words could actually paint a
picture that could be understood from the outside looking in. It’s just
one of those times when you just had to be there.
However one story that I can paint for you involves a 13-year-old girl who lives in Plastic City. Her family now comes to church and she was recently baptized. As I stepped carefully through the crowd yesterday to talk with her at the altar she told me her greatest need was for God to help her learn to read. My heart crumbled once again. Nikki and I have been working with her since the summer and she has the letters and sounds down and memorized some two-three letter words. As she rested her head on my shoulder and sobbed I just began to pray into her ear. I asked God to open her mind and cause sounds to connect and words to come together. I asked him to supernaturally make reading easy for her. Then I prayed for the shame that silences her and asked God to break that off of her and remind her of who she is in Christ. Tears flowed down my face as well as my heart was re-broken for the umpteenth time.
Late in the afternoon after I reached home my girl was still heavy on my mind. I silently asked God to give me some fresh ideas – ideas that would give her 24/7 help. He answered that prayer. I jumped on amazon to see if the idea was even a possibility and there it was. A new, but oh so retro, RCA shoe box-shaped tape recorder priced at $20.00 . Just below it was a six-pack maxell 60 minute cassete tape pack for $6.00. There is no electricity required with this retro solution – Four AAA batteries will do the trick. I sent off an email to someone due to arrive here in February to see if they would be willing to bring it in with them. The answer was a yes! So, before I leave for India my girl will have 6o minutes of sight words, simple books, and phonics to listen to over and over again. I have already decided to ask two of the oldest girls from RCHCC to help me with the project. They will do the phonics…A says, B says… and they will read the simple books.
All we can do now is wait, see, hope and pray!