Testimonies

"The Lord used my time at OEI to show me His power in my life in a new way. Different challenges came up and in my own human strength, I could not go on. All I could do was cry "Help Lord!" As I was stretched beyond what I had known before, the Lord showed me how strong He is and that I can trust in His promise that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. The training we received equipped us with the tools we needed to share the gospel with those God brings across our path. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to attend OEI and grow in working with children as I sought to make an eternal impact in their lives with the love of Jesus." -Anna Kirk

"I learned much at OEI about how to teach a Bible story in a fun and exciting way, how to make a Bible Club fun for the kids, and a lot about God. The most challenging part was the first day, when we learned how to be real soldiers for Christ. I became very close with Charlie – my counseling group. I was really challenged in the Lord during OEI. One of the times that really helped me realize what life is all about is when we had “campfire.” Several of the students shared what God had done that week in their clubs. In addition, Mr. Shrock shared about how all we have done on earth will be thrown into the fire. All of the worldly stuff, the selfish things that I just did for myself, and the ungodly things will be burned up – only what will have been done for Christ will last. Each act, thought, and word will be weighed and burned up if it was not done for Christ. My huge pile of things that I had done on this earth may end up a small pile of the few things that were eternal and could not be destroyed by the fire. That really showed me that the only thing that matters is what we have done for God. This was one of the main lessons I learned from OEI. I grew closer to God during those 11 days and prayed a lot! The Lord was faithful and aided me in my teaching of the clubs. I really missed all of the kids that we ministered to and was really sad when we had to say goodbye at the end of the week, but I know that God had done great things in some of their hearts that would last for eternity." -Marilee Janzen