Blog Post By Trevis Smith
Wednesday’s VBS at the orphanage was a special one as we have a former orphan (Delphine) on our trip who wanted to share her testimony. She shared with the kids her story of how she grew up in an orphanage. She spoke about how she knows the situation they are in and some of the same feelings they have. She said that looking to be adopted was not the end all, but that finding out what God’s plan was for each of them in the situation they are in right now. Our lesson was led by one of the teenage boys (Stephen) from the Refuge Church, and he shared the story of Joseph and how God put people in his path to help him in the right direction and allowed God to speak through others around him to help him on the right path. Dou Dou translated and in his own God fearing special way, he connected to the kids with the right words that quickly raised an “Amen” from the crowd.
We grabbed a snack lunch and headed out to Bon Bon to see the other church that Long Hollow had helped build. Once we arrived at the destination in Bon Bon, we walked up the hill and into the Church building. It should be completed in about a month. Once completed, the ESMI plan of Church/Clinic/School will take place. The clinic will be the next building to be built, so the community of Bon Bon can be ministered to in a physically healing way. The building after that will be the school. ESMI will provide an education for the town of Bon Bon that their children would not otherwise have. The team gathered in a prayer circle and we held hands and prayed for the church building and the land. We prayed that God would use this land and the people to proclaim His kingdom come in this country. We prayed that any evil would be shut out and that the community would be receptive to what ESMI was doing for that community. We prayed that His glory be shown and His will be done. I told them that like Moses being shown the promised land, but not allowed to enter (even though the Bible states that his eyesight was still good and his energy had not left him) so we are able to see God’s vision for Bon Bon even though we may not be direct participants in the following through of that vision. We prayed that God would bless the hands of the workers and bless the feet of the future church goers. We prayed that God would work on the hearts of those who were to eventually be ministered to in Bon Bon by ESMI’s ministry.
That afternoon we led another VBS in the local church for the community kids and we finished the evening off by going back to the orphanage and watching the first movie in the Chronicles of Narnia series. The kids had been asking for “Une Aslan film” ever since we arrived and we were able to provide that movie for them, albeit only about half the movie was able to be shown as we lost power from the generator during the movie.
Even though the day was long and trying, it was great for our team to teach two VBS’s to two different kid groups and pray over the land at Bon Bon and end the day holding and loving on some kiddos as we watched a movie. God’s work had been done, our hearts had been softened, and experiences had been shared that would never be forgotten. We were all piling up stones of memories that will no doubt be with us until our last days on this earth.
