So tonight in bedtime stories, I asked if they had questions. One girl asked why we have a breastplate with holes in it! Wow what a question. We talked about how humans are not perfect, we make mistakes and often sin. But when we give our lives to live for Christ, and believe that he takes our sins for us and God views us as righteous. He gives us this breastplate, but it is a gift. We can't work for it by being perfect, because we are not. This sort of lead into the verses we were going to talk about Matthew 11:25-30 where Jesus says give your burdens to him and he will make our yoke light. I was going to focus on prayer and giving our worries and concerns to God, but the analogy can also be about our sin. So we tied the two together. The children asked what burden's were. Some girls thought right away that it was about sin, but I also said it could be things that they are worried or concerned about. I gave examples from the stories they had already told me. (Just some of the things these 8 to 10 year old girls worry about: Masha , for the courts to settle the things for her adoption; Alisa - for her mom to stop smoking; Ksusha - for her grandma who works to support the whole family and yet has legs that don't work right; Ksusha - for her grandfather who is an alcoholic and smokes a lot; For Karina - whose mother has been sick for 7 years, For Emma - who is still too shy or has hurts too deep to share them publicly - but is bold enough to ask for prayer in general. There are more but with the rapid fire of requests I couldn't remember them all.) So we practiced giving these burdens to God in prayer.
On girl also asked for us to explain verse 27 "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to real him." Ha take that, nothing slips by these kids. So I did my best also to explain this. I'm so thankful for inquisitive girls. Please pray for them to get there questions answered, and that they never stop asking the tough questions. Please pray for their burdens listed above, and help them to learn how to give them up, so their load is lightened.
The rest of the day wasn't nearly as exciting It was supposed to be 95 degrees out today. I don't know what it really hit but it is 10:15pm the sun went down 2 hours ago and it is still 83 degrees outside. So we went to the sea in the morning for a little relief in the water. We did craft in the afternoon. Friendship Books and then spent an hour signing them. I was dripping in sweat just sitting on the bench. It never happens, but I said it was hot. (Please pray for this as well - it is supposed to get hotter, and team members and kids are already getting sick with heat stroke.) In the evening we played Biffer. I got to once again play the jailer where I get to "whamp" kids with a foam noodle, without a translator...which is always humorous. I have limited words I can say: Sit down, two minutes (which since it is summer and I have turned my math brain off, is really like 30 seconds to 1 minute.), and Good Bye; Sometime I get adventurous and ask the kids "Why, another time?" Which sounds horrible but they get it. I don't know if it is just natural in Russian, or if they are just so used to me speaking such poor Russian that they pretty much are used to putting the pieces together. I'm not really sure how the love of God is shown in this game, but the kids love it and ask for it again and again.
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