Chelsea Bentley: Rain Down on Me

In church on Sunday, the APU team taught us this simple little song:
Holy Spirit rain down on me
Like the African rain
Rain down on me
I am thirsty; rain down on me
Like the African rain
Rain down on me

Thanks to the stormy weather we have had most of the week and the fact that the kids sing it all the time, I haven't been able to get that song out of my head. It is such a simple little chorus, and there have been several occasions this week when I have prayed those words and been so blessed by the Spirit of God.

I am learning to appreciate the simple things in life,especially all the things that we take for granted as Americans. Since we couldn't do much work outside in the pouring rain this week, I learned how to mend clothes and spent three days in the office with the sewing machine and huge piles of my kids' clothes. In America, most of the clothes that I was mending would just be thrown out or shoved in the back of a drawer somewhere, but when you are a child in Kenya who has only one drawer of clothing to begin with, it is a different story all together. I am not an experienced seamstress by any means, but to them it doesn't matter. As long as the holes are closed and the garment is wearable, they don't care what it looks like. These kids are so appreciative and consider themselves so blessed to have a single drawer full of clothes, three full meals each day, and a school where they can go and get a good education. They are teaching me so much about how blessed I am, and in turn how I should be thanking God by blessing those around me each day.

There are times when I wonder what kind of an impact I am really making for the Kingdom as I am ministering in a place where everybody already knows Jesus. Then I walk up to the house and have a whole group of children just waiting to give me a hug or a high-five or ask me "Will we dance today?" Jesus didn't just say, "Go and save people and then leave them to figure their faith out on their own." He said, "Go and make disciples," and that is the work that I am doing. God has already saved them, but he is using me to continue the work of turning these children into fully devoted disciples so that they can go out someday and do the same for others. I know that teaching them dance and drama is going to open up a whole new world of possibilities for ministry after I leave here, and I pray that God will take those possibilities and use them to make an impact in this community and beyond. "Holy Spirit, rain down on me and on these children like the African rain. Bless us so that we may be a blessing to others." That is my prayer for the next four weeks.