1. How do you turn a potato into a porcupine? That’s exactly what the children were discovering when I visited a Life Hope Center in the country of Georgia.2. It was the children’s second lesson about fruits and vegetables, and they were learning the English names of the produce while transforming them into animals and modes of transportation. 3. These children attend English classes at a Life Hope Center, or urban center of influence. Their teacher, Ginta, is a volunteer from Latvia. She uses interactive teaching methods to keep the children engaged. She even includes their parents in the action!4. Ginta encourages the children to paint, and she’s very proud of their artistic creations.5. “Let me show you something,” she said excitedly during our interview. She searched through a stack of papers and returned with something in her hand. “Look at this picture of a butterfly one of the children painted during a lesson about animals!” 6. Fifteen-year-old Simon has been coming to Ginta’s classes for the past few months. After many questions and conversations, he’s eager to study the Bible and the Adventist message. “I’m interested in Christ’s second coming,” he says. “I’m going through the Bible lessons in preparation for baptism. My life has changed.”
The Potatoes and Porcupines story begins with the captions.
Ginta loves her ministry, but living in a different culture has been challenging for her.
“It’s been very hard for me,” she says. “You are from another country, and the people don’t know you. In the beginning, the children just watched what I was doing, but now they’ve started to be friendly to me. Just today a few of them said, ‘Teacher, we love you!’ It’s really nice. And it was the same for the parents. In the beginning, they were very distant, but eventually, they began to trust me.”
Once Ginta establishes a relationship with a child, she’s able to talk to them about Jesus.
“I don’t want to be just a teacher,” she says. “I want to be their friend. I want to tell them about God and how much He loves them.”
Ginta’s ministry has resulted in some 15 to 20 people studying the Bible with a Global Mission pioneer named Gotcha. The group worships together every Sabbath.
Please pray for Ginta and Gotcha as they share Christ at this Life Hope Center, and thank you for your continued support of Global Mission projects.
Watch this story in action at m360.tv/s2016!