GOD MOVES IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS
It’s newsletter time once again, and many beautiful things the Lord has done, including adding a year to my life this month! Indeed, He moves in mysterious ways.
In July CEF conducted a trainer of trainers class (TCE 1) class – TCE stands for Teaching Children Effectively, something that all ten prospective Sunday school children wanted to do. I was invited to give the devotions and teach a few classes as well. Thank God everything went smoothly. I seem to enjoy giving devotions even more than teaching the actual lessons, I wonder why. When the training was over a graduation ceremony was organised for them, and the graduands showered a lot of gifts on us three teachers in appreciation of what we had by God’s grace taught them. Among the gifts was a particular saucepan I had been looking for for a long time. There is joy in serving the Lord. A line in the old Methodist hymn says “Make you His service your delight, your wants shall be his care”!
MYSTERIOUS WAYS IN A SPECIAL SCHOOL
A door opened for me to start ministry at New Horizon Special School for the mentally retarded, so towards the end of the third term I began going, but not without a bit of trepidation, because I had almost no experience with mentally challenged children. Thankfully, my experience with preschoolers came in handy, and I just taught them as if I was teaching preschoolers. The first day I taught, I just couldn’t resist asking God why. True, God doesn’t answer questions beginning with “Why”, but I asked him nevertheless: “Why did you make such beautiful bodies but with brains that don’t work properly?” Well actually God did answer in a way I really didn’t expect. At the beginning of a new term I arrived one Tuesday morning as usual, and they were having praise and worship which I joined. There was a visiting minister so I wasn’t teaching that day. As we sang and clapped there was such an overwhelming sense of God’s presence; it was so moving. It was as if God was saying “I am here, this is my doing”. The passage in Isaiah 45 came to mind.
Isa 45:9 "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'He has no hands'?
Isa 45:10 Woe to him who says to his father, 'What have you begotten?' or to his mother, 'What have you brought to birth?'
Isa 45:11 "This is what the Lord says-- the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands?
When the Almighty speaks, who can respond? I meekly confessed my unbelief and praised God instead for the work of His hands. They are such miracles in themselves, such a happy and accepting bunch of people - created in His image for His purpose. Truly my God works in mysterious ways.
Please continue to remember me in your prayers.
Akos
God is His own interpreter, and he will make it plain!
