The fabulous Preschool Director at our church had a genius idea to take upcoming 1st graders (Kindergarten is still considered preschool) on a week's worth of mission activities in our community. Terri and I both share the notion that no one is too small to do God's work, and Terri was ready to prove the nay-sayers wrong! I'm constantly upset by people who think little ones are too young to get anything out of doing something, or are too small to do any good. Shame on them!
I am so, so grateful for the opportunity to come alongside Terri and another darling teacher named Kymberlee to write the Bible lessons and co-plan the week's activities. I've been excited for this week for two months!
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12.
See, kids needs to learn to serve God from the beginning, not later in life. In theory, parents should be setting an example DAILY, but sadly, our culture doesn't do a great job of exemplifying this. However, nothing says we can't change things, so changing them we are! Fourteen families have signed their kids up for four days of K-JOY: Kindergarteners learning to put Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself last. Our prayer is that they will learn how much God is pleased by this and seek to make it a daily habit, regardless of the influences around them.
Monday began with the story of Jesus telling people the Greatest Commandment (Mark 12:28-34). It was so fun hearing the kids tell me the commandments before we even read the story. I had no idea how well Kindergartners could read, and I was very impressed with how well each child could navigate their Bibles. Way to go, parents!!! We then went out to our church's garden to harvest tomatoes and peppers to take to the food bank today. All of the produce that is harvested in the garden goes to the local food pantry. :) The kids' "admission" to K-JOY was 4 cans of non-perishable foods, so we then put Bible verse labels on the foods. They also decorated grocery bags to take to the food pantry so that families would be cheered by the colorful drawings on the bags of food they receive. The kids also took turns baking cookies and decorating gift sacks for a special treat for the ladies that make quilts each week for the Crisis Pregnancy Center.
Today's Bible lesson was about the miracle of Jesus feeding 5,000+ people with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread (John 6:1-15). We went to the food pantry to deliver the canned goods, grocery sacks, and fresh produce. The kids were in awe of the food bank and the process in which the families go to get their food. I think many of them will be asking their moms to stop by there to make donations now. They liked looking through the bags of food to see what the families might receive once a week. Our local food pantry helps about 300 families a week, most of whom have jobs but just can't work enough hours to make ends meet. The kids delivered the cookie bags to the quilting ladies and were overwhelmed with the hugs from the 'grandmas'. :) Those ladies went home very happy today. The kids also made thank you cards for our custodial staff. They wrote such sweet things, such as "Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for making my Sunday School room ready for me. and Thank you for cleaning our church". Sweet Fausto could hardly make it through their darling presentation of their cards as each one wanted to tell him why they were glad he takes care of them and our church. They also made door hangers for us to take to an assisted living home tomorrow.
I don't have pictures I can post as I don't have parental permission to post them, but just know there are 14 adorable faces being transformed by serving their God this week!
No comments:
Post a Comment