Grandma's Stories, Stories for Teens

The Story of Tarore (continued from last week)

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  One night on this trip with her father, there was a shout from some enemy marauders, and all Ngakuku’s men quickly got away. But Tarore didn’t hear them and when the enemy came upon her, they killed her with their clubs and then took her book and made off. None of them could read and they didn’t really know what to do with it.

When they arrived at their home village at Rotorua, one of the captive slaves there could read. So he picked it up and would read it out loud to anyone who would listen. After some weeks, the message of the book started to work on the chief who had killed Tarore. “Those are the words of Truth”, he said, “It is teaching us that we must only do good to others. I have not done good. I must go and tell Ngakuku what I have learned”.

He made his way through the bush trails and over the hills to Ngakuku’s village. When the men of the village saw him coming, they said to Ngakuku, “Here is our enemy. We must kill him and take utu (revenge) for our little Tarore”.

“No, no” said Ngakuku, “That is not right either. That is not the way of Tarore’s book. Let us hear what he has to say”.

So the two chiefs met together, and made peace with each other. They had both come to know the One True God that Tarore’s little book had told them about, and it took all the hatred away from them.                                                                                                                                       But Tarore’s little book had not finished its work yet. The slave at Rotorua was set free to go back to his own place which was many miles to the south, and when he went he took Tarore’s book with him. After all, no-one else could read it. Once again that little book did its work. As the slave read out loud to the people around the fire, two more young warriors heard what it said and believed it. They talked together and said that it wasn’t good to keep these words to themselves.

“Let’s go and tell the southern tribes these words of the One True God”, they said. So they asked for the little book and paddled off down through Cook Strait, and along the eastern coast of New Zealand’s South Island eastern coastline.    Everywhere they pulled over to stay, they would read the words of this book of Luke. Many of the Maori people believed their words, and when the white missionaries went to those areas many years later, they found the people were already believing about the One True God.

It all started with one little girl who wanted to learn to read. What seemed to be a terrible tragedy when little Tarore was killed, God turned into a wonderful blessing….Tarore went to be with Him and many hundreds of people came to hear about Him as a result. It just shows that we are never too little to tell others about the Lord Jesus. Tarore’s grave is still able to be seen in a paddock near Highway 27 just out of Matamata, Waikato….it has a plaque with her name on it.

Grandma's Stories, Stories for Teens

The True Story of Tarore, Part One

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Tarore was a little Maori girl who lived in the Waikato part of New Zealand back in the times when there were only a very few white people living there. The Maori people still hadn’t got European clothes to wear, nor did they have proper houses to live in. Things were still very primitive in their villages. Tarore didn’t really know much about the white people. She lived in the village with her parents and her little brother.

She often heard her father talking with the other warriors about things like battles and utu (revenge) and she knew there were often wars going on between the different tribes near where they were living. If anyone was killed, even if it was an accident, one of that person’s relatives would have to kill another person to get even.

Tarore knew that white people had books that they could read, and there came this longing into her mind, that she wanted to learn to read. If only she could get to where the white missionary lady lived, she might teach her to read, she thought. She told her father (Ngakuku) one day about this, and how much she wanted to be able to read.                                                                                                                           “What good will that do you?”, he asked, “It won’t help you to get food to eat!”

But nothing put Tarore off. Every now and then, she would ask her father to let her go and see the white  lady. At last, he said “Yes”, and Tarore was so pleased. She could hardly wait to leave and go.           She trudged along the forest trails and over the high hills between their village and the new town on the coast where the missionaries lived. When she arrived at the house where the missionaries (Mr. and Mrs. Brown) lived, she was almost too afraid to walk up the path and knock on the door. But she got enough courage to do this. Mrs. Brown came to the door and saw this little Maori girl standing there in her flax  skirt holding her little kit-bag with a few things in it. Mrs. Brown knew enough of the Maori language to understand what Tarore was saying.                                                                                                                    “Of course we will teach you how to read”, she said kindly, “But you will have to live with us here in the house and learn our ways first”. Tarore was overjoyed and soon learned how to wear the strange sort of clothes that Mrs. Brown gave her. She also had to learn how to sit at a table and eat her food off a plate with a knife and fork. She found this very strange at first….it was so much easier and quicker to eat with one’s fingers! But because she couldn’t wait to begin her reading lessons, she quickly did as she was told.                                                       She had other things to learn too. How to sleep in a proper bed instead of on the floor, and then how to make it the next morning. How to have a bath and keep her hair tidy and clean. Everything was so different!

At last the day came when she could begin to learn to read. She picked it up very quickly, but also had to learn how to spell words out and how to write them too. She also learned about the Bible and how it was God’s book for everyone to read. She was so pleased that she would be able to learn to read from this book.  The part of the Bible that Mrs. Brown used to teach Tarore to read from,  was the  part called the book of Luke (in the Maori language it was Ruka). Mrs. Brown taught her in the Maori language from a Maori translation of the Bible.                                                                                                             After some months, Mrs. Brown told Tarore she had learned enough to go home and read to the whanau (family). Mrs. Brown prayed as she watched Tarore trot off  wearing her green dress and carrying her little kit-bag with her precious copy of Luke in it, “Please dear God, keep her safe and help her to be able to tell her own people about You”.

Tarore made her way home and was so happy to be able to read to her family as they sat around the fire at night. At first her father,  Ngakuku refused to listen.                                                                                   “That’s just stuff for women and children” he said.                                            But after some weeks, he began to listen and one day, he said,                “Those are the words of truth from the One True God”.

Shortly after this, he and some of his men made a journey off through the bush, taking Tarore and her little brother with them. Tarore took her precious copy of the book of  Luke with her, and at night  she would read it before lying down and then put it under her head as she went to sleep.

(This story will be continued next week)

Life Lessons

That Black Dot!

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A friend sent me one of those thought provoking excerpts that you see from time to time, and I thought this one was worth passing on. A professor set his class an exercise to teach them an object lesson, and as they sat at their desks there was a blank piece of paper in front of each of them. “Now when I tell you to turn that paper over,” he said, “I want you to spend ten minutes, describing what you see on it”.

The class settled themselves down, and then he said, “Now turn your paper over and write what you see.”

They each turned their paper over and it was completely blank except for one black spot in the middle of the sheet. There was silence for a moment, and then they began to write. After he had collected the papers at the end of the ten minutes, he began to read what they had written. Without exception, they had all concentrated on the black dot, describing its approximate size and position on the paper, and what they thought it might mean.

“Now,” he said, “I did this to illustrate a point that I want you to all remember. You all concentrated on the black dot, and you’ve all written about it. But not one of you even seem to have noticed the amount of clean white paper there is surrounding that black spot! You know, that’s like the bad things that happen in our lives, and we all have them from time to time. They are just like that small black dot, and they seem to consume our thinking. But I want you to concentrate rather on the amount of clean white paper there is on that page. This is like the good things that we can enjoy, even while there is a black dot on our page! There are always things we can be thankful for, and as we concentrate on them, the amount of clean white paper makes the black dot look very small…the good things almost over-ride the black dot.”

There is a lot of truth in this small parable…we should always concentrate on our blessings rather than on the dots of disappointments and discouragements. They will pass with time while the joy of the blessings will last. No matter how bad our circumstances, there is always something that we can be thankful for, especially when we have a Christian faith and hope in God. That is the first thing we can praise God for!

 

Life Lessons

Have You Ever Thought of This?

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When a child is born it is totally dependent on its parents for all its needs. As it grows older, so this dependence is taught to turn to independence until the child is able to look after itself and ultimately leave home.

But in the spiritual life, it should be the other way around. We so often loudly declare, “I’m not having anyone tell ME what to do!” The sign of a truly spiritual person is that of growing dependence on the Lord as they go through life. We are to learn to depend on the Lord for our decisions and our behaviour more and more as we go through life …the Lord said “Unless you become as a little child, you cannot have part in the kingdom of heaven”.

It doesn’t mean that we behave childishly, just the opposite in fact. The more mature a Christian becomes, the more he will depend on his Heavenly Father. Just as a small child depends on its father for its daily needs, so we have to learn to depend on our Heavenly Father for our spiritual needs. Without this dependence, we will surely make a mess of things in our life.

We remember that Jesus called Himself the “Good Shepherd”, and a shepherd’s job is to look after his sheep. He only allows what is for the ultimate good of the sheep, but sometimes we take ourselves out of the shepherd’s care. We wander away to where the grass looks greener over the fence, only to find that it is a sour marsh! Then we have to endure the consequences of our foolish and independent actions. The trouble is that we often take those we love with us into this maze of trouble that we have deliberately gone into.

But remember this…..the Shepherd is always there to pick His lost sheep up and take it back to the fold rejoicing as He goes! A sheep is never too lost to be found….all it takes is a feeble bleat of “Help me, God! ” Not only does He rejoice over the lost sheep that is found, but His angels and His people all rejoice as well! It is up to us as a lost sheep to make the first move towards Him and He will make ten steps towards you!!

Life Lessons

Near Enough

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    We were working on a project together, and I was thinking it was time we were finished. “Well, that’s near enough”, I said as I put my gear down. My brother-in-law looked at it, and said, “Near enough is not good enough, Gwenyth, you’ll have to spend a bit more time on it!” Those words have stuck with me for over forty years, and whenever I am tempted to think “Near enough”, they come back to haunt me.

King Solomon was one who chose what was good, but it was not the best. He felt his need for wisdom to rule his people well, and that was good, but when it came to himself he made his own decisions based on worldly wisdom. He thought that by marrying these foreign princesses he would gain peace with their fathers’ nations, instead of trusting God to keep peace for him. What he didn’t reckon on in this reasoning, was that he was disobeying God’s commands to NOT marry anyone who did not follow Him. He was positive it wasn’t all that important and that it didn’t really matter….after all, look what he was gaining!

His wives brought their idols and foreign ideas with them, and as he gave each woman her own department, these idols were set up and worshipped by them. It wasn’t long before Solomon’s own walk with God had faltered, and then failed altogether. He had disobeyed God and failed in his duty. Although God blessed him physically and he became the wisest and wealthiest king that has ever been, yet his own spiritual life was dry and dusty, and he declared, “I’ve tried everything there is to try and it’s all vain and useless!”

He would have been far better off to have asked God not only for wisdom, but for an obedient heart to always follow His ways. How often in these things we say it’s “near enough” to just go to church each week and then to do our own thing the rest of the week forgetting about God’s ways. Let’s always remember that “near enough” is NOT good enough, especially in the matter of spiritual values!

Adult Testimonies

Paul’s CV…..

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  Paul was a unusual character, yet God had His hand on him right from birth (Galatians 1:15).  Even though he didn’t know it, God had chosen him for a special purpose.

When we first meet Paul, he is described as a “young man” known by the name of  Saul.  (Acts  7:58).   He was a Roman citizen by birth (Acts 22:27-28) having been born in the town of Tarsus in Asia Minor  and very well educated. He had finished his learning under the tutelage of Gamaliel , one of the highest teachers in  the Jewish faith at that time, in the city of Jerusalem.    (Acts 22:3)

Young Saul felt it was his vocation, even more, his bounden duty, to eradicate all those who were following this new faith called “The Way”. He went all through Jerusalem,  hauling both men and women off to prison.     (Acts 8:1, 3)

    Later, his intention was to follow these people to the ends of the earth if necessary, to shut them up. He felt this was his calling that God wanted him to do. It was for this reason that he set off for Damascus to do this very thing, but he never got there….God stopped him in his tracks and spoke to him in a blinding light that left him without sight for three days. The men with him saw the light and heard a noise (without hearing the words spoken). Saul knew it was indeed the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ and he responded immediately.   (You can read about this in Acts 9: 1-9 and 22: 4-23)

After his eye sight was restored to him, he immediately began to preach that Jesus Christ was the Son of God who had come into the world to save sinners. People couldn’t believe their ears….this was the man who had been throwing people into prison for doing this, and now he was doing it himself!

Paul went off into the desert for a period of time after his initial preaching, and tells what happened to him there in  Galatians 1:11-24. He also explained that what he was preaching and teaching was not a man’s idea or his idea, but that God Himself had shown him these things and told him what he was to preach.

These letters that he wrote to the different churches were borne out of his great concern and love for the people he was writing to. We might wonder why, since he was doing such a great preaching work, the Lord allowed him to be shut up in prison so much, but it was during these times that he wrote these letters which indeed are God’s instructions to His people for that time right down to the present time. The young Christians had much to learn, and he wrote of God’s order in the churches, and the mysteries of God’s intentions for His people (Christ in you). He also straightened the people up when they took on board the wrong ideas concerning the old law’s rules, and showed that Christ had died once and for all time for man’s sins when people turned and confessed it to God.

We have much to be thankful to Paul for, and indeed are indebted to his writings which have been preserved for us. Let us each one make sure that we acknowledge that what he has written is surely the Word of God in truth.  If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write to you are the commandments of the Lord, he wrote    (1 Corinthians 14:37).

    Let’s begin to take a closer look at these things that he wrote down and take heed to them for they are indeed the words of the Lord to us for today!

Grandma's Stories, Stories for Teens

Great Meanings

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   “Sarah, tell me what the sermon was about this morning,”  Uncle Jeff asked as the family finished their lunch around the table one Sunday.

“Well, the minister had three points,“  Sarah said as she folded her table napkin, “He was talking about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, ” she said as an afterthought.

“What about them?” Uncle Jeff asked, “What can you remember about them Bobby?” he asked as he turned to him.

“He said that Abraham was always building an altar everywhere he stayed”, Bobby said.

“Well, that’s right”,  Uncle Jeff said, “But why would he want to do that?”

“He did it for God,” Betty piped up .

“Did not,” said Bobby, “He did it because God told him to!”

“That’s what I said, “  Betty said in an aggrieved voice.

“Come on you two,” Mum said, “That’s enough!”

“Well, what about Isaac then?” Uncle Jeff asked. “What was so special about Isaac?”

“Isaac was a promised baby,” Sarah said, “His mother and father didn’t have any children for years and years and God kept telling them they would, and at last they did. They called him Isaac which means happy.”

“That’s right,” said Uncle Jeff, “And he was a happy little boy too. What did he do when he grew up?”

“He dug wells wherever he went,” Bobby said.

“What do you think the wells meant? What were they for?” Uncle Jeff asked.

“ Well, wells give water,” said Sarah thoughtfully, “So they must stop people being thirsty. We need water too, to get washed with.”

“Alright,” said Uncle Jeff , “Let’s think about these two things for a minute. Abraham made altars, and Jacob dug wells. What do you think they signify?”

“Dunno!” said Bobby as he ran an imaginary truck along the edge of the table.

“I guess Abraham  wanted to worship God and that Isaac believed that God would give him the water he needed for his soul. After all, we all need water to wash with and to drink.” Sarah said.

“That’s quite right,” Uncle Jeff said. “What else did the preacher say this morning? What was the third thing?”

“Something about Jacob!” Betty said, “It was something about Jacob!”

“I remember!” Bobby said, “He said that Jacob was wrestling with a man….brrm,brrm.”

“Yes, but the point was that Jacob thought he knew it all until he had to meet his brother who he had cheated, and he was scared. All his cleverness didn’t do him any good then! “ Sarah said, “It was really an angel who was wrestling with him and he didn’t know it was. Jacob was nearly beating him too, and then the angel touched the top of his leg and he began to limp, and he limped for ever after. What did that mean Uncle Jeff ? ”

“It showed Jacob that he wasn’t as smart as he had thought he was, and that he had to depend on God after all,” Uncle Jeff said, “It also showed everyone else that Jacob was different now, and he wasn’t  the cheat  that he had once been. You know, when we really come to know God, we will be different too….we won’t limp like Jacob did, but people will see that we don’t tell lies or dirty jokes any more or do mean things to other people.

And something more too about Jacob,” Uncle Jeff went on, “It wasn’t until Jacob got right with God, that he was able to go back to where the altar was that his grandfather had built so he could worship God once more in the right way. That’s just like us too, we can’t really worship God properly until we have washed ourselves in the water of repentance, and learned to depend on God. It was after this, that God gave Jacob a new name….Jacob’s name  had meant “Cheat”, now he was to be called Israel which means “Prince with God”, and that name has stuck right down to today!”

Mum had been listening to all this while they were talking, and now she said, “Isn’t it wonderful the way the Bible tells us stories that have such deep meanings for us if we will only think about them and take notice!”

“It sure is,” said Uncle Jeff, “And now I’d better go as I’ve got things to do. See you all next week!”  as he went off.

You can read this story for yourselves in the Bible in  Genesis chapters 13:1-4;   26: 32-33;   32: 24-30;   35:9-13.

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Why Problems?

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    Keith came in for lunch one day with a very sore back. He had been working on fixing our back deck which needed a large board to replace one with rot in it, and had twisted his back in man-handling this board. As it turned out, it was quite a while before he could get back and finish the job, taking several days of lying flat on his back and then being very careful walking around until it came right.

We all experience times of trials and problems as we go along in life and wonder why. Even worse, we wonder “Why me?” The Bible deals with this same question, and quite clearly tells us why. In the  book of Hebrews chapter twelve we read….                                                              “For the Lord disciplines the ones  He loves and chastises every son He accepts. Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it.”

So we see that it is for our own good, and that we will benefit from it if we take it the right way. Sometimes we need to take time out for meditation and reflection and if we are always too busy we miss out on these times. We can either choose to be resentful and grumpy in our pain, or we can take the attitude that it will soon pass and things will get better. It is all up to us!

Then there is another aspect of when things go wrong and we are laid low. Paul had a disability of some sort, and he asked the Lord three times to take it away, as he felt it was hindering his work for Him. Each time he was told by God, “My grace is sufficient for you, because My strength is made (or shown) to be perfect in your weakness”. Paul accepted this and said that he would gladly suffer these problems so others would be able to see God’s strength enabling him to continue. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

We don’t realise how often we are examples to others of how God is at work….let’s make sure we are always a good example and not a bad one!

See what God has to say to YOU.