One evening we were celebrating one of the older girl's birthday, and the mama of the flat invited me to stay for dessert. We had a great time, mostly with everyone rambling on in Sutu and me listening intently to see if I could catch anything - which, by the way, I didn't.
After a bit one of the girls got out some twine and we started braiding bracelets. A bunch of us girls were congregated at the table: some listening to music on my phone, some of us braiding, some organizing beads and doing various things.
After a bit of chit-chatting, one of the girls asked me a question:
"Amanda, I was wondering... if you are saved but you do bad things... do you need to ask Jesus to come back into your heart again?"
I was so happy to hear this question - not because she was confused, but because it was something she was pondering and she wanted to know for sure what was right. I explained to her that, when we ask Jesus into our lives because we want to make Him king in our lives and follow His ways (not just not going to Hell, etc.), Jesus lives in our hearts and He will never leave it, just like the Bible says in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ - nothing can make us lose our salvation. I continued by telling her that we still do bad things because we are sinners, but if we are truly Christians, we will have the overall desire to live for God and will want to ask God for forgiveness and the help and strength to be more like Jesus. I also made clear that, though as Christians we should be doing good things, our works don't save us; for a Christian, good works are the natural response that a Christian should show in his life (James 2:14-26).
This was only the beginning of a great discussion many of the girls participated in. What kind of clothes is better not to wear, and how short is too short? Why? What kind of people should we be dating? How much is too much in the terms of dating? Why should we take time to get to know a person before dating - can't we just start dating and then figure all that important stuff as time goes by? Is it okay to have unsaved friends? What about Christian friends that are doing bad things? On and on the discussion went, and I was so encouraged to see some of the girls challenging themselves and realizing that there were some things in their own lives that they needed to reconsider.
I was also encouraged to see the girls were distinguishing the differences in how unsaved people live. We've been having a group from Australia staying with us while they are working at the kids' school; they are all nice, but most of them aren't Christians - especially the three young adults. Being typical girls, a couple of them asked me if I would marry one of those young guys. I replied no because he wasn't a Christian. "How do you know he isn't a Christian?" one girl accused. Before I could explain, one of the quieter ones replied, "Because he isn't living like one". A little later, I was saying how I thought the girl young adult was nice, to which one of the girls replied, "Yeah, but I don't like the way she dresses", and went on to name a few reasons. I was so encouraged to see that, though the girls obviously enjoy these young adults, they were realizing the difference from these people to the Christian people they know, and thinking about why they wouldn't want to be exactly like them.
I say all this to encourage you to keep praying for these kids, especially the teens. They are struggling with everything any teen in Canada is going through and more, and they need to understand the difference of living for the world and living for Jesus. I am praying that God would keep them near Him and that they would realize the significance of living for His glory.
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