The storytelling students told their stories. Barang and Sakha were both very groggy, because they'd pulled an all-nighter to record a song in Khmer for someone who wanted it no later than today. The class voted Barang's story the best of all, and I asked him if he'd be willing to tell it in Kids Club. He declined, partly out of shyness and partly because he didn't think he could do the story justice on two hours' sleep. The story, incidentally, was how God broke through to him using his love of the piano. He started the story with the first time he ever touched a piano key, and how it brought to the surface all the pain he felt over his bad home life. The story was entirely in Khmer, so all I knew of it was the very short English synopsis he gave me, but everyone in the class said it was powerful.
In the Young Disciples Bible study, we finished up the year of jubilee, talking about slaves being redeemed and returning to their families. We talked about the passage from Isaiah that Jesus read at the Nazareth synagogue, and why He compared His ministry to jubilee. That got us to how sin enslaves us, but Jesus is our kinsman who redeems us and allows us to go home to be with God and our family of fellow believers. Pastor Chantha sat in and translated, and afterward had some incredibly kind and gracious things to say about the lesson. It turns out that he's preaching on Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue this Sunday. I truly love it when God arranges perfect timing like that.
At Kids Club, we also finished up the year of jubilee. Delia and Ratanak continued playing off each other; they have wonderful performance chemistry together, and the kids loved them. Afterward, the Disciples showed off what they'd learned in the morning classes we'd taught: Barang and Pia played "Jesus Loves Me" while we all sang, and then Dara and Kimloi teamed up with Joe and Chloe to do a wordless skit to music. Finally, I took a chance and asked Barang if he would possibly be willing to tell his story, and he smiled and said yes. Only when he got up on stage and looked horrified did I realize that he'd misunderstood the question and still didn't want to. But he was already on stage, and people were chanting his name, so he relented and told it. A couple of times he had to fight back tears, but the kids were attentive, and at the end he got a hearty round of applause. And I saw tears in a few other eyes around the room.
We prayed over them, sang and danced to several more songs, and told the kids goodbye for the last time. We'll see the Disciples again at church on Sunday, and possibly a few of the kids, but for the most part, we've wrapped up the big relationship-forging stage of the trip. Tomorrow we're staging a party for some girls in after-care, and then we pay a visit to Bloom Café.
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