The five children played on the floor around me, smiling angelically, asking charming questions, and running in circles—doing everything except listen to me explain the Gospel. Jenny (name changed) seemed to be the ringleader. Thirty minutes later, she had succeeded in distracting every child, and all those who had originally wanted to hear the Gospel were completely disinterested. At the end of Bible Club, the children lightheartedly dashed out the classroom door. I put my head down on the desk and cried.
Three months later, Jenny again came back at the end of the Bible Lesson to hear the Gospel, and again, she began distracting every other child in the room. I tried to keep her attention, but she didn’t seem to care. “Jenny, hon.” I turned to her and smiled kindly. “You need to go back in the other room with the other children and play the review game with them. This conversation is for people who want to believe in Jesus to take away their sins; this isn’t time to run around and play.”
Without Jenny distracting the group, the children were able to focus on God’s plan to take away their sins. But this time I was the one who felt distracted—I couldn’t get Jenny off my mind. As soon as the other children had had their questions answered, I sent them back to the review game and found Jenny. “Am I in trouble?” she asked anxiously as I pulled her aside.
“Oh, no, I just needed to talk with you for a minute.” I pulled out my Wordless Book (a book that shows a selection of colors and explains the Gospel in a child-accessible way) and showed Jenny the first color. As I flipped through the book, I asked Jenny questions about the Gospel, trying to see how much this five-year-old understood. To my surprise, she completely answered every question. Somehow, through all the distraction and confusion of the previous few months, Jenny had still heard the Gospel and understood it.
“I have never believed in Jesus before to take away my sins, but I want to now,” Jenny said, and immediately bowed her head to pray. When Jenny looked up, I asked what had just happened. “God took away my sins,” she announced without hesitation. “That deserves a high five.”
Jenny continues to come to Bible club every week and is full of questions. “I try to talk to God, but I don’t think He hears,” she confided to me once. Another time she came to the club and told me she loves reading her family’s big Bible. Every week, Jenny asks questions about God, holds my hand, and soaks up as much love as she can during this Bible club. The change in her is remarkable. And she was right—that does deserve a high five.
