Story After Story We Were Amazed!

This second day of Orientation and Bible Week we had the students come up front and take turns telling their personal stories.  We had them give their testimonies concerning three things:
1. Were they raised in a Christian home?
2. When and how did they become a follower of Jesus?
3. Why do they want to become a Barefoot Doctor?

Many of our new students were raised in Christian homes and came to Christ in their youth, but it was only later that they came to know God at a deeper, more intimate level.  It was only in the last few years they found themselves wanting to find a better way to serve and glorify Him with their lives.  Many of them told how they had spent several years praying for God to show them what He wants them to do and that the Barefoot Doctor ministry is the answer to those prayers.

Some of these students have lost close family members and dear friends to diseases no one should die from any more. The reason they died is that medical care was not available to them.  Their malaria, tuberculosis, or some other disease or infection could have been overcome with modern medicine, but they were prevented from getting that medicine.  Other students told us how a Barefoot Doctor had come to their village just in time to help someone they loved.  They told how impressed the whole village was at what God allowed the Barefoot Doctor to do. Still others told how a Barefoot Doctor had shared the Gospel with them or their family and how they had surrendered their lives to Jesus because of their preaching.

These 21 students are all unique in their stories and their experiences, but they have this in common:  all of them are looking for God to use them however He wants to use them.  All of them are asking God to shape and mold their lives so they can become instruments in His hands to touch the lives and hearts of other people.



We just finished up our evening devotions with a wonderful time of singing and prayer.  In the devotion tonight I spoke about Jeremiah 18:1-6 in which God told Jeremiah to go down to the potter's house to see what he was doing.  There, in the potter's shop, Jeremiah learned how God wants to shape and mold our lives because it is His right to do so (and better for us).  He just needs us to be as willing to be shaped and molded as a lump of clay is. A lump of clay has no plans of it's own.  A lump of clay has no ego and no agenda. God knows best, and we would be wise to humble ourselves before Him and ask Him to do whatever He wants to do IN us and THROUGH us.  The enthusiastic prayers offered at the end of our devotions show, I think, that the students got the point of that bag of clay I brought with me.

It is a great honor and privilege to be working with these dedicated young people!  Thank you for praying for them and us as we get them started in their training as Barefoot Doctors.  Jon

Pictures for today:
Jim Winter teaching about staying close to God
A student sharing her testimony
Timothy C. and Jung Dangshing