Dear Partners in Service,
This is a special note from Sherry!
I have been working with children and youth for over 35 years. My first introduction was teaching a Sunday School class with another woman who was a “natural”. Pre-school children are a real handful! Nonetheless, they have impressionable minds and hearts and ask the most interesting and innocent questions about God, His Son, Heaven, Hell and the future. Who would have thought?
My next venture was working with Junior Teens and High Schoolers. What a joy. Okay, maybe not so much Junior Teens. They know it all and don’t want to hear a word you say, until... something near and dear to them brings home the idea that there is One more powerful than they and who can lift up their heads. Once their bottom drops out, that’s when God can work in their lives and takes His rightful place on the throne.
High School youth, now that’s my cup of tea. Inquisitive, looking for the “answers to life’s questions”, searching for something, some One. To this day, talking to high school kids is a natural part of what I do whether in the High Schools, church youth group, community programs. They’re almost like a magnet. If there are high schoolers around, it’s an automatic that a Youth Group is started and an opportunity for young people to gather to share what they are going through and finding answers in the Word, enjoying one another’s company through games and community service.
Then there are the College and Career catchment. Young people who are trying to find their way in the work world and still maintain a testimony for Christ. One of my favorite courses and often asked for series is: “Dating, Love & Marriage”. Where the rubber meets the road... young people making the second most important decisions of their lives...who will be my life partner?
All this to say that it has been thrilling to work with young people of all ages and to have some return years later to say that what they had learned so many years ago, really did have a lasting impact.
This week there were two instances which warmed my heart...
-One young man came into the office to turn in one of his Bible correspondence lessons and receive the next. After chatting for a bit he asked if I remembered him at a younger age. I couldn’t say that I did. He said, “one day you were walking out of the bakery with a loaf of bread, you saw that I was hungry and gave me a few coins to buy some food. I never forgot that. I’m letting you know you fed the hungry and therefore, were feeding the Lord.” I cried on the spot. One small, innocent act...
-Earlier this afternoon I had to run an errand at the bank. Behind the Customer Service counter was a familiar face but I couldn’t for the life of me remember who this gentleman was. He introduced himself and proceeded to tell me a story. When he was in first grade, he came into the Christian Resource Centre with his older brother. He just wanted to get off the street. After being introduced to the children’s books he saw people coming and going with pamphlets. He asked what they were, Mailbox Club lessons, and wanted to join. That was his introduction to reading “See and Do”. From there, his love of reading, his love of learning, his love for the Lord began. Today he is married with two young boys. After the holidays, he will be bringing his boys to the Christian Resource Centre to introduce them to the lady who taught him to read, taught him to know and love God. He closed by saying that he knew that once he walked back into the library, he’d have to fight back the tears for all the sweet memories the place brought him.
I’m telling you, my heart was full of joy, the tribute meant so very much. Sometimes we wonder if it’s all worth it. It is! Working with young people, working with women, is so very worth it! Even if only a few come back to say, “you changed my life” it’s worth it and all the negative talk falls away because that life, that one life, was changed, impacted and today impacts others.
In His Service,
Sherry
