Day #16

Another week is almost complete as tomorrow is the last day of Holiday Club. It honestly went by much faster than I anticipated. I have truly become attached and invested in the ten children that I worked with this past week and it makes me slightly saddened that tomorrow is my last day to spend with them. So tonight, as I write each child a personalized letter of encouragement, I reflect on how grateful I am to have had the opportunity to work with such outstanding kids.

By the way, I thoroughly enjoyed sporting my pj's for the majority of the day today. It was quite nice to wear pajama pants all day long without getting any weird looks from other people since everyone looked equally ridiculous.

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Throughout this entire week of Holiday Club I've learned numerous things.

For one, I've been reassured that salvation is an incredible thing. Working with 80 sixth and seventh graders this week, I was able to not only encourage but also be of assistance to those children seeking salvation. I was able to pray with them, share with them my testimony and watch as God moved within them. For me, there is no greater joy than witnessing and being a part of someone accepting Christ into their heart.

Secondly, I've learned that sometimes.... people just need love. This past week, I met the smartest, most talkative and random thinking sixth grader in all of eternity. This one child, who knows all of the differences between Percy Jackson the movie and the book and has no problem in explaining each difference to you. This one child who always raises their hand and wants the chance to share something, even if it is irrelevant to the current topic. However,  I realized that although this chatty child's eagerness and randomness often aggravates others that are around them, they are only seeking one thing- love. They simply yearn for the love and attention that is often not provided to them at home. So guess what, I let them tell me every single difference between the book and movie of at least three different novels. I let them rant on and on about uninteresting topics because they needed to know that some people are willing to listen; some people are willing to care. And each morning when they got there and every afternoon before they left, I gave them the biggest bear hug, EVER because affection is not always a common thing in some households. You see, although it is of utmost importance for me as a leader to stress the importance of faith and biblical scriptures, sometimes the simple things of love and the ability to show compassion to others has the greatest impact.

And lastly, I learned that it's okay to have fears as a leader or as a Christian in general. I've learned that it's fine to have moments of despair and sadness because the things that test your faith are the very things that make your relationship with God stronger than before. Not only that, they build on to your constantly changing testimony. I learned that my mistakes and my fears are often relatable mistakes of others and  in having the courage to share those things as a testimony, I may be more effective in leading other's to the Lord.

Good night.

xoxo
Taylor