The same initials as the Holy Spirit
One of my students put their hand up this week, and said "Miss Stewart, you have the same initials as the Holy Spirit!"
I smiled, "I know, I love it!"
I often find myself writing my initials on things - e.g. on my timetable to remind myself when my meetings are etc. And every time I write HS, it makes me smile, because I am reminded of the Holy Spirit's nearness. But even cooler than that is that my students worked it out without me mentioning it to them.. This is just one small thing that shows me that I am being faithful in teaching them about who God is and helping them to see God everywhere they look. I feel like one of the joys of teaching children for so many hours each day is that it makes it much easier for me to stay in a place of child-like wonder.
They are so sensitive to who God is and what He is doing and it humbles and amazes me. Another of my students recently asked if she could show me something about Jesus. I gave her the board marker and she wrote "Jesus" on the board and then erased the "Jes" and said "look - it says us - we are inside Jesus". I'd never thought about that in that way before to be honest, but I could straight away then share with them all about Him being the vine and us being the branches, we remain in Him and He remains in us (see John 15).
And this is what my life looks like with these amazing students... every day there is opportunity after opportunity to share with them about who God is, to pray with them, to teach them academically and to teach them spiritually and emotionally too. We can get into really deep conversations too about life and death, sickness and healing, what Heaven is like etc, as children walk through those things with their families and think about those things too. I also love it that they continue to talk to me about my dad in a way that adults and older children don't. When time moves on, people's lives move on and there is a normal social awkwardness about bringing up in conversation someone who has died. We don't want to bring something up that might upset someone, but in fearing that, maybe we have become too cautious.. But my students are blissfully unaware of that and so they will casually drop things in like "Miss Stewart, you have two fathers in Heaven now!" or "Your dad knows what Heaven is like!" And it just fills me with joy because the line between heaven and earth is so thin in Grade 2.
I am thinking about eternity a lot at the moment, and I had the privilege of speaking about it in church last Saturday. I have the recording so feel free to Whatsapp me if you are particularly interested and I can send it your way. The team and most of the staff were away in different parts of the country, so it was mostly the children that I was sharing with then.. and it struck me that here are another group of children that I get the opportunity to talk about Jesus with and teach and encourage.
A couple of our street friends have died recently and it's heart-breaking to realise again how quickly life can be taken. It renews my determination to live and love with intentionality, not allowing inconvenience or my own desire for comfort to get in the way of obedience to the Holy Spirit. The truth is that none of us know whether we will be here tomorrow.
Please continue to pray for me and for us as a community:
We really need new teachers and leaders at KISC - please pray for recruitment
The students, staff and families at KISC - protection, provision, closeness to Jesus
My students in Grade 2
The staff, team and children at church
Our friends on the street
You can see photos and find out more about what KISC is doing through the KISC Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KISC1987
Or the KISC Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/kiscnepal/
Thank you for your continued prayer and support. I am so grateful for each of you.
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