Thursday, July 10

Our Bible School – White Oak Church of the Brethren – is always well-attended.

If you get there just before 7:00 PM, the front of the church is lined with teachers and children.

We got there a bit early so I could get a few pictures from the balcony.

It looks there is a jungle theme this year.

I took several pictures before the children came inside.

As you can see, we have some creative artists.

The pulpit area.

I did not use a flash – thus the soft focus on many pictures.

Song leader: Gordon

Bible School Superintendent: Kevin

Creation Feature: Butterflies.

Devotions: Garth 

Storyteller: Craig (our own missionary pilot on furlough from Brazil).

He kept everyone’s attention with a few stories from the jungle – especially when a village captured and killed this large snake that had killed a dog.

Then he did a missionary illustration with several children. This little guy represented a missionary preparing to go to the mission field.

The children on the left represented hindrances that are keeping the missionary from getting to the field. The children on the right represented friends and family who are supporting the missionary. The tug-of-war was pretty uniform, meaning the missionary made little progress in getting to the “field”, which was to the far right.

Then “God” entered the scene.

…and you guessed it, the missionary made it to the mission field. 🙂

This was Parent’s Night, so the attendance of 580 was especially good.

After repeating the memory verse for the week, the children went to their rooms, and the adults stayed for the adult class, which was taught by Craig.

Since the subject was on God’s protection, Craig shared many interesting stories of God’s protection, especially involving flights into the jungle of Brazil.

One in particular that I liked was when he flew to the jungle to get a woman who had been bitten by a snake. Even though the bite area looked awful, she refused to go to the city hospital. About the time Craig was becoming frustrated with the situation and the hours and money he “wasted” in getting there, someone came running to him and asked if he had room in the plane for another person as someone had fallen (I think out of a tree) and was seriously injured.

The medical staff later told Craig that because of internal bleeding the young man probably only had twenty-minutes before he would have died. He would not have survived if Craig had not already been there. And the woman with the snake bite recovered even though she refused to go to the hospital.

He also told of having to make an emergency landing due to the weather when his family was on board – and noticed a runway in a field. When he told the farmer that he had never seen his runway before. The farm said he just built it a week earlier because his son wanted to learn to fly.

~~~

Every time we hear Craig speak, Cerwin and I remember the summer many years ago when he went along with us on a team to Pikangikum, Ontario, Canada, to teach Bible School on the reserve. We knew then that God was going to call him to special mission work. I can still see him (probably age 15 or 16 years old) sitting on a large rock ministering to a young Indian man – probably about his own age.