I've never seen a person as excited and joyful as my student earlier. He's got his Bible for the first time!
This kid has been following up his request to me for almost two months now - to bring him a Bible because he just loves reading and he is super curious about Jesus. I did not give it to him immediately though I was holding my emotions about it because wow, that's quite intense for me to see how thirsty a kid is for truth. But I had to weigh down the rules at school and what will be the impact of it to his parents.
For the past days, I have been meditating on the book of Isaiah and saw how the first couple of chapters described the intensity of God's wrath for the nations who choose wickedness and separation from God. It has been impressing to my heart that at some point we have to face the sense of urgency in the field.
On the other hand, as I stumbled upon Mandisa's TED talk (an episode a couple of years ago), I was reminded of the story of Esther, stressing how she was able to go over the earthly boundaries and just dive into the infinite sea of God's possibilities, sustainance, and capacity. And so yesterday I said, ok God, I am going to give this kid his Bible, "if I perish, I perish..". One soul is more important than a job.
When I handed the Bible to this kid, his reaction was priceless. He screamed out of excitement and hugged his Bible. This may sound exaggerating but it really happened. I have not seen anyone in my life, before my eyes, one soul who was as joyful and excited as he was earlier. Even by the time when he thought that nobody's looking at him, I secretly glanced at him and saw how he hugged his Bible and even kissed it. As I looked in his eyes then, I saw great plans in his mind about how or when he will read it and explore it. He later told me, "teacher, I am going to read it everyday..".
Let us pray for this kid, his name is Vibol. He actually wanted to replace his name as "Vybol", which sounds like "Bible". Trusting this will be a start of something great for a 9-year old kid for his journey with Jesus. Bless him in Jesus' name. Amen!