Youth Report: Fall Harvest in New York
by R.M.

While the adults gathered the weekend of the New York Conference at the Laffin home, the children were having their own special "mini-conference" at the home of Chris and Kathy Anderson.

In the morning, we went through the Wordless Book, whose colored pages illustrate the way of salvation in very simple terms: the black page stands for the Satan spirit (sin) we are born into this world with; the red page shows the death of jesus Christ on the Cross to shed His blodd for our sins; the white page represents Christ’s Holy Spirit replacing Satan’s spirit when we accept Jesus into our hearts; the gold page reminds us that we are going to Heaven; and the green page shows that we are always growing spirituall as we obey God. After the children explained in their own words how to become a Christian, two eight-year-olds asked Jesus into their hearts to be their personal Savior. What a great victory!

Later that day, we read through the Old Testament story of Noah and the ark and Daniel in the lion’s den. We were able to see that these men in the Bible obeyed God and trusted that He would save them. They give us an example of how we are to trust and obey God as they did.

Probably the funniest moment with the children was listening to five-year-old Chelsea’s explanation of how to become a Christian: "You take Satan out and put Jesus Christ in." "How?" I asked. "You just cut your head off with a saw and take Satan out and put Christ in," she explained calmly. I had trouble suppressing a laugh and told her that it was much easier than that–all you need to do is ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart and ask for forgiveness of the bad things you ahve done. A week later, Chelsea prayed with her mom to ask Jesus Christ to come into her hearts–the "easy" way!

Our small group had a great day together as we learned and played games together. I can’t wait to see them again at next year’s New York Conference.