We had been asked
to lead the Sunday School and we didn't really know what to expect. We followed a similar format to Kidzone starting with teaching them Our God is a great big God. They really love action songs out here. The language barrier was a challenge but Sharon and Rebecca told the story of the Lost Sheep using puppets and all in Portuguese. The children were transfixed with the puppets and laughed in all the right places.Barbara then explained the story in a mixture of English and Portuguese - she has been amazing at picking up the language and is our human dictionary at times! She told the kids that they are all precious to God. What we hadn't realised when putting together the programme was that most of the children who come to the Sunday School are not yet Christians. The message was particularly apt.
Sharon also led a memory verse hunt, with parts of the verse hidden in the grounds of the seminary. The children love games here and so finding the little scrolls was particularly exciting. They were quick to pick up the memory verse which was Luke 15:10. We finished off playing games - musical chairs and musical statues work anywhere!
We thank everyone for their prayers back home. There are things that we will do differently next time but all the children seemed responsive and the leaders grateful. We are also continually learning that God works through us in ways that we don't realise and that ultimately he is in control of our time out here.
On Sunday evening we took part in the church service, singing and introducing ourselves in Portuguese. But for us the highlight of our Sunday was later on when Pastor Marcio, his wife Roberta, and Emma took time to be with us while we had our supper. They expla
ined the work of the Zoe project in Cha de Cruz, of which Tejipio is a sister project.Pastor Marcio showed us a DVD about the project which in 2008 had 250 children attending each day, but has now grown to 500. The last time that Sharon was here her team had prayed that the work of the Zoe project would expand. What an answer to that prayer!
The DVD told some of the stories behind the children we had met last week at the teen camp. We were moved to hear the conditions in which they live and play. We also learnt that last week some of the young people were leaving the camp at 6am to go to work, joining in with the others at 6pm when they returned.
We will have the opportunity to visit Cha de Cruz over the next couple of weeks which is slightly daunting as Pastor has asked us to lead the activities of the project on Thursday 12 August. We are excited, if slightly nervous, about this.
This afternoon we began our workshops which are a follow up to the work of the camps, reaching young people in the local community, many of whom are not Christians. Over the next 3 days we will run a programme with sport, craft and drama as the main activities. Each session begins with a theme and an opportunity to teach a little English.
Some points for prayer:
- That the workshops will be well attended and will be relevant to those who attend.
- That the children who come to the workshops will hear the Christian messsage at the start of each session and will become followers of Jesus
- That we would have inspiration and guidance as we plan the Santa Cruz programme
- Good health for the team - a few dodgy tummies so far which can make folk exhausted
No comments:
Post a Comment