CEF has a three year cycle of materials that rotates each summer for the 5-Day Club^® ministry, and this year’s series is titled “Jesus My Savior and Friend”. The lessons in this series are:

Day One – The healing of the paralyzed man

Day Two – Jesus calms the storm

Day Three – The woman at the well

Day Four – The healing of the centurion’s servant

Day Five – The rich young ruler

    In general, when teaching children, it is always a good idea to have lots of action and involvement so that their interest is piqued and maintained throughout the lesson. In this series, days one, two, four, and five easily accommodate themselves to this strategy.

    But then there is lesson three. Literally this entire lesson takes place in one place, a well. There are basically two characters, Jesus and the woman, and there is not a lot of action, just lots of dialogue. It’s not a super “exciting” lesson. And so it was on Tuesday that I mentioned to one of the 

other volunteers at the Wood Colony 5-Day Club on Tuesday that “tomorrow is going to be a tough lesson to do, because there is not a lot of action.”

    But Wednesday came and, to my surprise, the children sat in rapt attention, soaking in every word that was spoken. And then I realized, then it hit me, that what I had done with that lesson was quote almost verbatim the Scripture from John chapter 4. I didn’t just tell the lesson, I quoted it almost Word for Word. I didn’t need to keep those kids’ attention because God’s Word did it all on its own. Now, to be sure, I read it with inflection and enthusiasm, and with proper dynamics, as if they were there at the well hearing a conversation, but I paraphrased very little.

    It was a reminder to me that God’s Word is always exciting, and what we may think is “boring” is still God’s inspired Word. That day several children responded to the invitation, and some received Christ. Praise the Lord that He has placed his Word in our hands and called us teachers!

Praise God for the 600 more children that have been reached to date over last year, and we still have 6 weeks to go in this ministry year!

Praise God for the 244 children who heard the Gospel at the Convoy of Hope event in Modesto on July 29. And praise for the 29 of them who received Christ!

Praise God for the seven 5-Day Clubs that have been held this summer, and for protection of our workers and the children in the extremely hot weather. Three of those clubs happened after this writing and before your reading, so there are no statistics yet.

Praise God for the children reached at the Convoy of Hope event. Again, this event has happened between the writing and the reading, so statistics are upcoming.

Praise God for the Good News Club^® opportunities this Fall in Waterford, Hickman, Modesto, Salida, Newman, Le Grand, and Stockton.

Praise God specifically for the yes we received from the Waterford School District to hold a Good News Club at Moon Elementary.

Pray for two new committee members by the end of this year, and for a staff member to be hired in the Fall.

Praise God for His financial provision through the first half of this year!