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Shelley (Guyana) is part of the children’s ministry in her country and also regularly leads trainings with the rest of the OM team for Jesus followers. A misunderstanding before one training session led to children and teenagers being invited instead of adults.
It was the smallest training the team had done in Guyana, and Shelley was disappointed. “At the end of the training, I really did not expect to hear a lot of feedback,” she said.
“But then a few days afterwards, I was talking with one of the parents of a participant, and she told me about what her daughter was doing. She said that her 12-year-old daughter Celeste* started sharing the gospel with her friends in school, because a lot of our friends are not Christians. And then Celeste came and asked her for four Bibles, and she took the Bibles and gave them to her friends. They started reading one chapter every day and started their own small group.
“I was really encouraged because I thought that the training did not have much impact, but the Lord was working on this girl's heart. Right now, she has a very active small group in school, and she's encouraging all her friends to go to the weekly Bible club, which is held at their school. They also spend time, every lunch period, reading one chapter from the Bible. During the week, Celeste would send them encouraging messages on WhatsApp and some of them started responding to those messages.”
Shelley met with Celeste to talk with her and encourage her as she leads the Bible study. She found that Celeste was very excited to see what God was doing in her friends’ lives and to see them growing in faith.
“That [mistake in the training invitations] was a blessing in disguise,” Shelley said. “The Lord really showed up, and I give God thanks for that.”
Marleen (Netherlands), who trains children’s workers across OM, said that it was important to remember that children and young people can be part of God's work and reach their peers.
“We should not look down on the little ones (Matt 18:10) or be disappointed with small or young audiences, but welcome them like Jesus would and disciple them to be partners in God's mission,” she said.
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