When Bageshri was invited to a Gospel for Asia Vacation Bible School, she thought she already knew all about Christians.
As devoted as her parents were to their traditional gods, Bageshri’s father had no problem working as an idol-maker for a different local religion. But Christians were a different story. Christians were off limits.
“Christians are not good because they do not have any form of godliness,” Bageshri’s parents told her. “They forcibly convert people from other communities to their religion.”
But one day, another girl from the village invited Bageshri to come to the church’s three-day program. Bageshri and 15 other children from the same religion decided to go.
What she found there was the complete opposite of everything her parents had told her.
The VBS teachers and her Christian classmates were loving and respectful. They encouraged one another to learn good things, and they saw everyone—even those from the lowest castes of society—as equals. Bageshri had never seen anything like it in her own community.
“I did not like Christians, but after attending this VBS, my thoughts toward Christians have changed,” she said. “Now I know whatever I heard from my parents about Christians was not true.”
The teachers taught Bageshri about working hard and respecting her parents. She was even inspired to make a commitment to study harder in school.
Most importantly, though, they taught her about the love of Jesus, and by the end of the program, Bageshri decided she wanted to follow Him.
“I will go and tell my parents that their thinking about Christians is wrong,” she said.
Now, as Bageshri attends church and grows in the Lord, her parents are seeing an example of that truth every day.
Vacation Bible School is just one piece of GFA’s children’s ministry. Check it out.
