Term break

Actually our "Life of Jesus" term isn't officially over yet. But we had some volunteers who wanted to come this Sunday & weren't available on the 18^th, so we'll finish up then.

Once before we had had a group of volunteers take the kids to a local park, leaving the adults to have some uninterrupted conversation time. But we had more kids this time, and fewer volunteers, plus it was slightly drizzly. So the parents went off to the café in the park to drink tea and talk, while the volunteers entertained the kids back at the church!

We divided up the kids into two groups as well. The volunteers stayed with the mentally handicapped kids while I took the three neurotypical girls (ages 10, 10 & 8) into the office to inaugurate our "kids' discipleship group." We talked a little about the passage where Jesus rebukes those who wanted to keep the children away from Him. Our application being that children can be His disciples too, and it would be good to use this time to discuss the day's Bible story and pray for one another like the adults do.

I'd been a little concerned that they would resent losing their free play time, but they like to talk at least as they like to play, so this little group has its appeal too! I passed out identical little notebooks with attached pens, so that we could record prayer requests and pray for each other. Each then prayed for the person on their left.

I look forward to seeing how this develops, even though it means one more meeting I need to prepare for each week.

This morning I had Bible study with the mother of two mentally handicapped girls. The younger girl, Lai Ting, is 15 and quite articulate. Mom would like her to be allowed to join the girls' group and be encouraged to think about how to apply the Bible study. She couldn't do the writing, but other than that I can imagine she would be able to be an active participant. Now I just pray that the other girls will genuinely welcome her!!