Our family just made a trip to share practical disciple making tips in the Children of Destiny orphanages in Los Cedros and Jinotega, Nicaragua.
We celebrated Christmas by telling of how God gave, Jesus gave and we should all give our lives to Him. We also gave shoes (crocs ) to the kids.
Today we had a birthday party for Jesus. We celebrated Christmas by telling the Christmas Story (From Luke 19) of Jesus…
Posted by Ed on Wednesday, December 16, 2015
“Here is an apple, who wants it?”
Everyone was so excited and they all raised their hands and shouted,
“Me, Me, I want it!”
Then I took a big bite out of the apple,
“Who wants the apple now?”
To my surprise all the kids raised their hands again,
“I don’t care, I still want the apple”.
I thought to myself, “So much for that illustration, it didn’t work at all”
Later I mentioned to Joy, the director of the children’s home, about what had happened with the apple illustration. She exclaimed,
“You had an apple?
The kids love apples but do you know how much an apple is worth here in Jinotega?
The kids only eat apples on very special occasions because they are so expensive.”
I told Joy we would like to give the kids something special, not toys that break in a day or candy.
That’s when we went to the store and purchased every child a bag of apples as a special Christmas gift.
Before we handed out the gifts I shared with the kid’s
“it’s more blessed to give than receive and we should give God our very best- our firstfruits.”
John 3:16 tells us God gave us his firstfruits, His Son Jesus.
My illustration with the apple finally came to life as we gave every child a bag of apples. The smiles and crunching noises from every delicious bite made this Christmas time here in Nicaragua extra special for all of us!
But that’s not all. One little girl, really took the message to heart as she returned her bag of apples to me,
“I want to be like Jesus, would you please give my bag of apples to someone in the other orphanage who may not be as fortunate as I am.”
p.s. There is an ongoing argument that orphanages and humanitarian ministries are not fulfilling the Great commission. As director of Globe International disciple making our family made a special trip to Nicaragua see for ourselves as we taught on disciple making. The verdict? Globe Hope is raising up disciples and servant leaders who are loving God, loving others and multiplying disciples. The children’s homes are an example of a true simple church. No big titles, just the church obeying the Christ’s command to make disciples of all Nations one child at a time.