Meet Kayla, my 11-year-old Bible study contact.
“Do you want to learn about a beast with seven heads and ten horns?” my friend Wei Kang Chia asked Kayla, the little girl who answered the door. Wide-eyed, she nodded.
In the beginning of this school year all the students at Hartland had dispersed in the nearby town of Ruckersville to conduct religious interest surveys, hoping to find more Bible study interests. Kayla was the youngest person to request Bible studies.
The following week the outreach coordinator at Hartland approached me. “Rachel, would you like to give Bible studies to Kayla? She is 11 years old.” Though I responded eagerly, I had butterflies in my stomach. I had never given Bible studies before. How could I adapt the adult studies for a child? What if she asked a question I couldn’t answer? And what would her parents say?
The Lord impressed me to use Truth 4 Youth, a complete evangelistic series for children produced by Young Disciple Ministries. The PowerPoint presentations and scripts make it easy for a beginner like me to give Bible studies, and each Bible truth is presented in an attractive way that children can understand. “Where do you get these pictures from?” Kayla asked me once. “They look so real!”
We always begin our studies with a few simple Scripture songs. At first I didn’t see any response from Kayla, either positive or negative, and I wondered if I should teach her some popular children’s songs instead. A few weeks later my partner chose Psalm 139:23, 24 from the songbook. “I know that song by heart!” Kayla exclaimed. “I sing it at school sometimes.” My mouth almost fell open! We had sung that song only a few times. “I don’t know why,” Kayla continued, “but that song goes through my mind every week after you leave.”
It has now been almost a year since I started studying with Kayla. Recently she has started asking questions like, “What if someone sins just before they die? Will they be lost?” Her parents are very supportive of our studies. In fact, Kayla’s step-father has just begun Bible studies with one of my friends! Praise the Lord!
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” By God’s grace, the seeds of truth that we have planted in Kayla’s heart will be watered and will someday spring up into a verdant, fruitful tree.
