They call me Ma!

Lifeskill Educators.  That's their title, the young people from South Africa who work at Living Hope.  Some are married, some not.  Actually, they are not all from South Africa.  Some are missionaries from the States...precisely, from Tennessee...and then there's me.  I am not young, but seasoned.  And they call me Ma!  In South Sudan, they called me Mama Grace.

These young men and women have a hard job, always dealing with HIV and AIDS, orphans, and death and dying.  They come into the Resource center to work on their lessons for the day or the next day and to print off those lessons and make copies for the children or teens.

I came up with an idea: to have a Bible Quiz every day.  I put a question on the wall above the computers.  They sometimes know the answer and sometimes don't and have to look it up, either by borrowing my Bible or they Google it.  Then,  they write their guess on a slip of colored paper and put it in the special box on my desk.  Around 12 or 1pm, I take all the correct answers and shake them up and have someone who didn't take the quiz today pull out a the winning name.  The winner gets a piece of candy from the jar on my desk.  They love "sweeties" as they're called.  One of the guys said, "Nobody just gives sweeties away for nothing.  There has to be a catch."  This is the answer the Lord gave me: "The catch is you opened the Bible to find the answer.  That's what I wanted you to do: open the Bible.  That's the catch!"  He nodded.  He understood.  Yesterday's question was, "What book and chapter of the Bible tells the story of the birth of Jesus?".  The answer could have been Matthew 1 or Luke 2.  At 1pm yesterday, we picked the "catch" man's buddy.  Today, the question was, "For God so loved the world..." The answer was John 3:16.  More answered today and all got it right.  Some told their buddies the wrong answer, trying to throw them off and give themselves better odds at winning.  They laugh and are having a good time.  They perform a service, a tough one.  They deserve a fun distraction.  Today, they kept coming in to the Resource Center to remind me it was time to draw the winner.  They crowded around my desk during "the big draw".
They call me Ma...and I feel like it.  These young men and women are my "other kids".  They just have a darker tan than I do!  Please pray for them and the people they serve.