A divine meeting with Earl by Derek

We arrived at Missionary Village for our weekly Wednesday service, It was a rainy day so we had to have our service inside the truck, as the kids started to come over one by one I noticed this gentleman probably in his thirties walking around with a look of curiosity on his face, so I went up to him and introduced myself and asked him how he was doing. He told me his name was Earl and was asking a whole bunch of questions:  “what are you guys doing out here?”, “what’s up with the truck?” and I told him about the ministry, how we come out here every Wednesday and minister to the children, He had a look of excitement and joy on his face. He just said “cool!” and walked away. I thought that the interaction would stop there but praise the Lord that it didn’t.

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He came back as we started our service and asked if he could help us and we didn’t really need help at the time but I invited him to stick around and stay for the service, and he did; he was enjoying the service, saying “Amen” out loud during the teachings and encouraging the kids. We were teaching about how God can overcome any giants they are facing in this world; the stresses, issues and conflicts that this world throws at us. And then we introduced a new offering program to the kids; we are starting an offering program called “Change for Children” where we are encouraging the kids to look for coins and give them to God for an offering and teaching how one penny can equal a ton of blessings for others; Earl was really inspired by it and was encouraging the kids to give and telling them about how great God is, it was so cool! We then ended the service and I went to thank Earl for his help, and I told him that he can come back every week and help us, we’ll have something for him, I want to get him involved and he got very excited about helping and said he would be back next week. 

We were getting ready to head out and Earl comes back with a container full of loose change; he offered all of it to our “Change for Children” program and thanked us for coming out and expressed how great it is that we come out and how he was going to be coming back. Meeting Earl and seeing how involved he was, really put a lot of joy in my heart. It was so wonderful to see an adult openly expressive about their love for God and share that love with the kids.

I am looking forward to the weeks to come and to see how God will use Earl to minister to the kids. We are going to find ways to get him involved because the more involved he is, the more he’ll learn and the more God will speak to him and I can’t wait to see what God will do with this new opportunity for Earl. Witnessing what Earl did reminded me of how important serving is; it says in Hebrews 6:10 “God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them.” We got to take opportunities to help and show love towards other, don’t underestimate the impact just a simple encouraging word, act of kindness or act of service can have on others!