It all began with a simple invitation to come to Good News Club. He appeared the day of club and asked what we were doing. I told him it was a Bible club, asked, “Would you like to come?” Then handed him a registration form, waited, and prayed… and Isaiah came! One of things he shared with us is that he didn’t know how to find out things about Jesus in the Bible. What a joy to be able to help him with that.

At the end of club that day, after hearing a clear presentation of the gospel when the invitation was given, Isaiah raised his hand and wanted to be saved! Since that day, he has been coming regularly, eagerly wanting to know more about JESUS and growing in his faith.

As Good News Club teachers, we were teaching the Wordless Book to the children, sharing the gospel points using the 5 colors. GOLD that reminds us of God; the DARK color represents sin; RED, Jesus’ blood and what HE accomplished on the cross for our sin; the CLEAN color represents how we can be cleaned up from our sin; and GREEN represents growth, ways we need to grow in God’s family.

At our last club, Isaiah repeated back to us the entire teaching of the Wordless Book. Tammy, one of our club teachers, pretended to be someone who didn’t know the Lord and needed Jesus. Isaiah showed her the colors of the Wordless Book and explained each gospel point. Tammy decided she would see how he might respond in a ‘challenging’ situation. So when Isaiah was reviewing the teaching on the DARK page, Tammy said to him, “I’m no sinner,” to which he quickly replied, “Oh, yes, you are … the Bible tells us, ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!’” Even though she insisted she wasn’t a sinner, Isaiah stood his ground on the truth of God’s Word (and this with hardly any prompting on our part)!

Isaiah was given a little Bible. He told me he never had a Bible before. We also gave him a devotional page to work on. He is quite intent on learning more about the Bible and Jesus. I praise God how HE is at work in Isaiah’s life … and it all began with a simple invitation, “Would you like to come to Good News Club?”

There aren’t too many of us that like to wait…

We approached a local Syracuse school with the desire of having an after-school Good News Club at the school. We had meeting after meeting with school staff just to be told we needed to ‘wait.’ We needed to come back at another time. This went on for at least 2 years. Many were praying. A number of us decided to do a prayer walk around the school.

It was a Saturday morning, the sun was shining… we had a good number of people show up for the prayer walk. As we were nearing the end of our prayer walk, one of the club coordinators received a text from the vice principal … “Come to the school, we are ready for the Good News Club!” We were done with the wait!

WOW! All of us on that prayer walk were speechless. GOD showed up as a result of prayer. In that next meeting, the vice principal shared with us, “Thank you for your patience!” Our waiting had paid off!

It is stories like these that remind us that prayer makes a difference! God is good and is faithful to answer our prayers when we call to him! If you are interested in serving with a Good News Club, check out our Good News Club page or visit www.cefonline.com for more information.

What do you do when things seem to be at a stand still? You pray to the one that never stands still! God!

Several years ago, as we were developing our after-school Good News Clubs, a group of ladies were interested in starting a club at a local elementary school. The lady I was working with, Ruth, had a particular school in mind. Her church was ready to ‘adopt’ the school club, and volunteers were ready. When Ruth called the school and spoke with the principal, the principal responded, “Not in my school!” Ruth was ‘taken back’ by the response. What to do?

PRAYER! The church family prayed; there was a prayer walk around the school; CEF prayer partners were praying.
After about a month of prayer, Ruth felt led to approach the principal again. When she called the office, the secretary talked with the principal and an appointment was made for Ruth.

Ruth called me and asked if I would go with her to that meeting. I met with Ruth before our appointment with the principal. We prayed together. Both of us were a bit anxious. We prayed again in the school parking lot.

We went into the school and made our way to the main office. Ruth told the secretary who we were and we waited a few minutes for the principal. When she came, her first words to us were …”Now, about this Good News Club what can I do to make it happen?” I am sure Ruth was as shocked as I was to hear these words!

After our meeting, all Ruth and I could do was to praise God for this change of heart! Truly, this was a God-thing. We believe God moved in answer to His people’s prayers! As a result of this first club in that school district, we now have 4 after-school Good News Clubs in that district! Praise God!

Recently at our Good News Club, we began teaching CEF’s Wordless Book curriculum. We gave the children wordless book bracelets and are training them to use them to share the love of Christ with their friends and family – it is wonderful!

The week we started on lesson one, we began teaching the Gold Page which is about Heaven. One of the illustrated pages contains pictures of ‘things that will be in Heaven.’ The lesson also highlights the teaching of the Lamb’s Book of Life.

One of our little girls, Alicia, grade 2, was listening so intently to the teaching. When I said that each person who has placed their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins will have their name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, Alicia smiled to think her name was in the Lamb’s Book of Life since she had made that decision. She frowned and then raised her hand.

When I called on her, she said she was very sad because she just knew that her name would not be spelled correctly in the Book. Apparently, this has been an ongoing problem for Alicia, and she had tears in her eyes and a quivering little lip as she told us all about it. After reassuring her that Jesus knew how to spell her name and giving her a hug, we moved on, but she seemed unconvinced.

After the lesson was over, we moved on to the review game provided with the lesson. Around question #7, I called on Alicia to answer a question and she got it right. This entitled her to pick a special card from a stack, at random, and to say whether the picture on the card would be something that would be in heaven or would not be in heaven ….a correct answer meant another 1,000 points for her team! Alicia leaned over to pick a card from my hand, turned it over, and was staring at a picture of the Lamb’s Book of Life! She proudly announced the correct answer and then called out in disbelief, “Look! My name is in the Book and it is SPELLED RIGHT!” Sure enough, I looked and there was her name, “Alicia,” along with a list of other names on the pre-printed card from the publisher!

What an incredible gift God gave to that little girl that day in club. We were all so happy and rejoicing with her over this small miracle! Truly, God is in the details of our lives, every day, all the time! Praise God!