Thank you so much for your prayers! This is what happened at the school….

As soon as I got up from the computer after having fired off an e-mail asking you for prayer, I set to work trying to plan out what I would do the next day at the school. Lots of singing, that’s for sure! I have to do something with English though,… how do will I tie that in??? I had found out that Fabian and I would be occupying the time that the children ordinarily would be having English class.

By 1:40 a.m., when I finally turned off the lights in my room, a battle plan had been formulated. Amazingly the Lord had given me clearness of thought and ideas- it could only be the result of all that powerful praying on my behalf!

The next day I set off for the prestigious school wearing my American flag shirt and met up with Fabian and his guitar. Stef accompanied us to film this strange adventure.

We stopped under a tree before going in and with our hearts pounding Fabian prayed, “Lord, help us! Give us strength; give us wisdom. This may the only chance some of these kids will get to hear the gospel.”

Before walking in, Fabian clarified something that I was confused about, “No, my mom used to be a director of a school. Not this school. At this one, she’s the English teacher.” That would mean that she would be accompanying us! Lord, open her eyes too!

A man in a tie met us at the gate and let us in to the private school. We walked beneath a canopy of lollypops and bunny rabbits; the grassy lawn beside us had beautiful faces painted on to the trees making them look alive. “Fabian, you forgot your tie,” I whispered. He grinned at me nervously. This place is nicer than I imagined.

Fabian’s mom, Dona Clerí, led us to the first classroom. Rows of five olds in white shirts and red shorts and skirts gazed up at us shyly from their tiny desks. “Today,” Dna. Clerí started, “I’ve brought you a ‘boy’ and two ‘girls.’” She pointed at us emphasizing the English words. (Only she pronounced girl: gills J) She nodded at us and went to the back of the room to watch, leaving us to conduct the rest of the class as we wished.

So Stef flipped the camera on and we began.

“Hi! I speak English and Portuguese and so does my sister Stefanie. Fabian speaks a little bit of English too.” At this he waved to the little kids who looked up admiringly. Anyone holding a guitar looks really cool, I thought.

“But did you know, I have a friend who speaks English, Portuguese, French, Japanese, and all the languages in the WHOLE world?!” Their eyes widened in amazement.

“His name is JESUS! And He’s my best friend! Today we’re going to talk a lot about Him. First though, we’re going to teach you some songs! ”

We sang about elephants and bears that God made, we sang about Jesus washing dirty hearts and we even taught some simple songs in English. The kids loved it.

“Now, I need YOUR help!” I said handing Fabian various colors of construction paper. “Do you know how to say these colors in English?” They did, and they excitedly called out their names.

“Good! Now I’ll tell you a story and when Fabian holds up a color, you say the name of it.” I opened a large evangelistic story and held up the pictures for all to see. At the right point in the story Fabian held up the colors. (Kind of like the wordless book idea)

“Barney was an orphan. He didn’t have a mommy or a daddy. He sold newspapers to survive. Every night he went to sleep in a barrel. One evening as he was walking the dirty, dark streets he heard beautiful music. He followed the music until….”

They listened intently as Barney un-knowingly walked into a Bible Study and heard that his heart was “BLACK” because of sin. A kind man stayed afterwards and opened the “marvelous book” to tell Barney more about Jesus.

At this point in the story when the man explains salvation to Barney I added in more pictures and briefly told them of Jesus’ birth and ministry – “He could even stop lightning and thunder! He could heal anyone and had power over death! He was the Prince of Heaven and had come down to earth!” I told of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, his promise to make a wonderful Heavenly home and promise of His return.

Barney gets saved in the story and his life radically changes.

BUT.. Barney gets sick and a policeman finds his limp body in the barrel that he sleeps in. He is taken to a hospital where he witnesses to two nurses and a doctor. – “He told them about the marvelous book and his best friend Jesus and how He had died for him…”

The nurses and doctor get saved because of Barney’s testimony. Then Barney dies.

But… Barney goes to Heaven!!!! There in a shining big book (Lamb’s Book of Life) is Barney’s name because Jesus paid for his place in Heaven. Barney receives a crown. The last picture shows a tender picture of Jesus hugging Barney.

This same routine we repeated in five consecutive classrooms of different age groups! The only room where we did not follow this routine was the toddler’s room; we just sang for the 25 min. that we were with them.

The Lord’s hand was with us and He was working in a mighty way! A hush would come over every single room as soon as I began the story. It was almost as if they were holding their breath’s as they listened. I have never taught any group like that before! The reactions were touching.

• One little boy, to my right, covered his face in his hands when Barney died and only looked up when he found out Barney was safe in Heaven.
• In one room, a boy said that he would ask his mom to buy him a Bible when he got home. This instantly started a discussion of buying Bibles. Everyone wanted a Bible! “My daddy doesn’t have a Bible, neither does my mom. I’ll ask them to buy one.”
• Catholicism holds a death grip in this culture, it’s icy fingers can be seen everywhere: A saint hanging around the neck of one child, a reaction in another, “Jesus dies a lot.” Some Catholics actually teach that he dies every year! “No!” I told him. “Jesus died once to pay the price of the sins of the world! Now He is alive!!!”
• When I told them that MY name and FABIAN’s name were also in the Lamb’s Book of Life, I think one child desired very much to have his name written there as well. He began to talk nervously about how he goes to church (Catholic) and does good things. “That won’t help!” I explained, “Your heart is filled with sin and you deserve to die! But you don’t have to go to Hell. If you believe that Jesus died in your place then your name will be written in the Book because He already paid for you.” Instantly his eyes opened wide, “I BELIEVE !” A girl to his left immediately said she did too. Soon others were saying the same thing.
• One excited boy stood up and told me breathlessly, “When I get to Heaven, I’m gonna hug Jesus sooo much!” and he wrapped his arms around himself showing his classmates how hard he would hug.

By the end of the afternoon I was getting kind of hoarse and Fabian was holding up the wrong colors at the wrong time, but the Lord kept us strong!

So many things happened that day! Only Heaven will tell the long-term results. Most amazing to me though, is the fact that God worked it out in such a way that Fabian’s mom had to hear the gospel four times in a row! J

Thank you so much for going boldly into the Throne Room, lifting us up in prayer and causing demons to flee and light to pierce into darkened Enemy territory!

Love in Him,

Cynthia