have you ever played "simon says" with the devil in the pale moonlight?

I'm sorry for not posting in a couple of days, my computer has gone on the fritz. I'm not sure what it is, but Jake has guaranteed that it's fixable (don't worry Abe). I wouldn't mind if it was dead, as I'm planning on getting one of these babies, but I have a ton of pictures that would be devastating to lose.

Anyway, let's get to a post. Many of you have been praying for our safety. Praise God for answered prayers. Our team has been able to see prayers answered in a very real way this week. We have been blown away by the power and faithfulness of God Almighty. On day one of Kids Klub in Parmelee, we were spiritually and physically attacked by a few of the children. Over the past few days it has progressively gone better and better.

The social hierarchy of the children is very important as there is a very primal pack-mentality to their behavior. The alpha male of the pack is a kid named Jeremy (see pic in previous post). On day one Jeremy was much of the cause of any/all of our danger. Jeremy is a mean, violent, rotten kid. And we love him. Yesterday, Jake and I even were able to lay our hands on him and pray for him with a couple of the other kids. It was awesome.

Well, let me tell you about answered prayers and the title of this post. This one kid, since everyone tends to follow suit in a pack, could have ruined our entire week if he wanted to: two days ago Jeremy showed us all up during a sweet game of "simon says" and yesterday he and one of the other "trouble-makers" made some of the most beautiful stained glass coffee filter crosses that Sami had ever seen during craft time. I'll let those words sink in.

Praise God for answered prayers. I know that these kids, no matter how mean, are just kids. Sometimes I honestly wonder if it's demon-possession, but most likely it's due to their crappy, sexually/physically abusive, unhappy existences. I'm so happy to see God working in this kid's life this week. At the end of this week, he'll probably go back to being alpha male, but this week we've seen glimpses of his lost childhood. Thank you Jesus for that. Jake even mused that as the week has gone by Jeremy seems to be forgetting that he's supposed to be bad. He's still a (k)nucklehead, but praise be to God that he did not ruin this week for everyone.

Shaloam.