Boundless Hope

After spending time with Oti's family of 7 kids, I realized that they didn't have a very good understanding of their feelings. Sometimes they would react in unhelpful ways because they didn't understand what was going on around them or inside of them. We decided to start doing monthly emotions/character quality classes with their family and have since talked about anger, honesty, shame, and hope. While some of Oti's girls have big dreams others struggle to think beyond today. 

During our latest class we talked about how God gives us hope we can be confident of because it's based on his promises, which we know are true. We read about God's promises from his word: how he will always love us, protect us, take care of us, fulfill his special plan for us, and make us victorious. Then we played a game where the kids had to go through an obstacle course where each obstacle represented something hard that could happen in our lives because, while God has many promises for us, he doesn't promise that all of life will be easy. They successfully climbed over a chair because we have the confident hope that God loves us even when people make fun of us. They conquered crawling under a table because we have the confident hope that God will take care of us even when our loved ones get sick. And they were led to the finish line blindfolded because we have the confident hope that God will lead us even when we can't see how good can come out of the hard things that happen to us. The kids then had the opportunity to make a collage of different things they hoped for their lives. 

It was awesome to see them be so engaged and to begin understanding the big future that God has planned for them. I have no doubt that God is fulfilling his promise from Jeremiah 29:11 in the lives of Oti's children when he says that he has "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future".