Tomorrow night we are talking about how as Christians in America we are also part of the Universal Church. As such we should care about the persecution and sufferings of Christians around the world. If we honestly believe that what 1 Corinthians 12:26 to be true when one part of the body suffers we should all suffer with them.

The bulk of the lesson tomorrow will be a prayer time for persecuted Christians. We will have 3 prayer stations, 1 discussion station, and 2 letter writing stations. One of these is for a prisoner in China and the other is for the child our church recently started sponsoring in Korah, Ethiopia.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that my Sister and her family recently moved to Ethiopia to work with the children there. At VBS this year we took up an offering to send one of the kids who live in abject poverty to boarding school for a year. My sister thought it would be perfect for us to sponsor the sixteen-year-old older brother of the child that she sponsors.

Tonight I was writing a sample letter for the students to follow tomorrow. I was thinking about the fact how different the lives will be of the teenagers who are writing the letters and the boy who will be receiving the letter. I wanted the students to put something personal in the letter, but how do you say to a guy who spent his day scrounging for food that your favorite thing to do is sit in front of a computer all day or play video games in your air conditioned house with a room full of food right down the hall. How do you explain to this guy that you have spent more on random toys, gadgets, clothes, and well junk than he will make in his lifetime.

It is almost too much to comprehend that the students that I minster to and this guy have anything in common. But they both have a need to know they are loved. They both have a need to know they matter in the world, and they both have a need to know their savior. So I am very excited that our students get to be a part of this young man’s life. I hope that his story inspires us to give of ourselves for others.