This isn't the first time we've written about Bible Club. And hopefully it won't be the last. But this one is certainly different from those we've written in the past.
See, in the past we have gone out to Thabong, or Hani Park, or hosted the children at Welkom Baptist Church. This time we went to Kultwanong, a township about 20 minutes away. Pastor Vincent left Welkom Baptist Church to plant a Sesotho church in that location and we wanted to help support him in the Lord's work there.
But the major difference was in leadership. Normally we'll do a Bible Club when there is a team here to help us with teaching, crowd control, games and all those things. But this time we didn't need a team. What was so exciting about this Bible Club is that God raised the leadership up from our own young people!
Our mission has been to raise children who will be equipped to impact their communities for Christ. And it is such a blessing to be able to experience some of the fruit that God is producing in the lives of young men and women dedicated to Him!
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| Some great young people working together |
But to properly understand we have to rewind a few months...in fact, all the way back to July 2012. We were in the States and Brian and Lois hosted a team of young people from a church in Ohio. They came and held a Bible Club at Welkom Baptist Church. This year that team came back, but with a twist on their vision. Their leader, Jim Heffner, didn't want them to just come in and do a ministry for us. His desire was to see them come in equipped to equip us to do it. And that's exactly what happened.
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| Sorry, Chris. Had to post this one! |
During school holidays in July his team of youth partnered with our youth group, Thirst. The first week was spent in preparations, training, advertising, and team building. The second week was the actual event. Jim's main idea is very similar to my dad's philosophy in raising children - "Don't do anything for them that they can do themselves." (At least, that's what my dad said when he made us start mowing the lawn at age 9:-) But this proved to be very effective. Their young people came in prepared to teach the lessons and do the major things, but our youth were quickly plugged into leadership in games, crafts, dance and songs, crowd control, translation and whatever else needed to be done.
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| Team Ohio with Welkom Baptist Church Youth |
Those two weeks were a time of sweet fellowship between the American youth and South African youth. And from a leader's perspective it developed so much chemistry and camaraderie within our own youth group that hadn't been there in the previous months.
Not only that, but it helped give our youth a vision for what God could use them to accomplish without the need for outside support.
We immediately began planning a Bible Club for the next school holidays, which was the last week of September. Throughout August and September we spent time preparing, assigning roles and practicing. Abby and Jessica both took on a large load of the leadership, coordinating the music, drama and games. One week before Thirst led the entire Sunday School at Welkom Baptist Church. That helped highlight some "opportunities for improvement" and show who was truly committed to their roles. It also helped those young people committed to their leadership roles to know how to more adequately prepare themselves.
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| Figuring out how to |
The following week we jumped in!
Holding the event in the township changed some of the dynamics. The church is being held at Morningstar Children's Centre, a Christian daycare for HIV+ children. The facility itself is a bit smaller than the church grounds, and the township tends to be very densely populated. Plus, in a poorer area the kids tend to be more available to come to Bible Club, with less distractions than kids who have computers, iPods and all that. We intentionally limited our advertisement, hoping to have around 50 kids each day.
We ended up averaging about 90 kids per day!
Since this was our first experience we decided to host a 3 day club. We got there early on Monday to make sure we had lots of time to set up and handle anything unexpected. Not that anything unexpected ever happens in Africa! So, the first day as we arrived the youth started to unload all our props, object lessons, speaker, etc into the large meeting room...and the quickly came running out coughing, gagging and wheezing. Turns out the facility is equipped with motion sensitive pepper sprayers for security. The lady who opened up for us that day accidentally pushed the wrong button and set off the pepper spray. So it didn't directly get our young people, they just got the after-effects.
Because of the pepper spray we had to hold the entire club outside in the courtyard, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. God blessed us with awesome weather and having all the kids sing and dance outside drew some adult pedestrians who were passing by, stopping outside the fence to watch what was happening.
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| Dk leading the middle age group |
Our opening session included songs, dancing, Scripture and drama. Then we split into three rotating groups between crafts/snacks, games and Bible lesson. Our youth were in charge of everything except snacks, because everyone knows you can't trust teenagers where there is food involved.
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| David teaching the older age group |
David Canham, Dieketseng and Papa Revival taught the Bible lessons and each did an awesome job. The theme over three days was Moses birth, the Burning Bush and then the Passover. Of course, Moses never actually saved anyone so it was important for our teachers to draw out the Gospel from each of those stories. I was so impressed with how each of them tied the daily themes into the truth that we all need Jesus to save us. Praise the Lord for His truth going out, as well as for young people passionate to speak of Him!
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| I also learned this from my dad's parenting and from Jim Heffner's philosophy. Wasn't this also the advice Moses' father-in-law gave to him? Spread the workload, lighten the work! |
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| One of the Kultwanong guys explaining the Scripture in Sesotho |
Each day we had about 5 young men from the church plant join us, and we tried to replicate what the Ohio Team did with us - plugging these guys into roles of crowd control, Scripture explanation and other things. Hopefully during the next school holiday we will be holding another Bible Club for an area church and these young men would join us there.
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| The message of the cross: God, sin, Jesus, life. |
The last day during the closing session we broke up into smaller groups, with our youth pairing up to share the message of the cross with children in a more intimate setting. They were able to share the facts of sin, separation, redemption and eternal life with the kids in their own language, using object lessons that would help the kids relate. Our prayer is for lasting fruit from this outreach and that it would be used powerfully as Christ builds His church in Kultwanong.
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| Look how he's using his elbow to block out the other guys! |
P.S. - The last night after Bible Club we had a pizza party, along with a good debriefing discussion. 16 pizzas don't go far with 20 teenagers, that's for sure! I was left to pick the leftovers out of the box:-(
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| Woe is me. |
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| Sorry, Motshidisi. I just loved your enthusiasm. |
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| The kids enjoyed the dances almost as much as our youth leaders:-) |
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| Refilowe, Siya and some of our other leaders |
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| One of the most encouraging things was how our young people reached out to the kids, getting right down on their level with them. |
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| Our dance team rotated every day, guys and girls both stepping up with enthusiasm |
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| Lots of drama roles filled by lots of different people |
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| Rose and Teboho led the Bible Club as emcee's. And they both did great! |
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| David Canham has been teaching children for many years and his experience showed |
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| Having local young people teach in a local language made a tremendous difference in how we were received |
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| In addition to Revival, Dk and David teaching, our other young people assisted them with the lessons |
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| Apparently the lesson was really electrifying |
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| Dk teaches the story of Moses. See if you can pick up some of the words. |
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| Game time got pretty serious. Just ask Drake. |
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| And if you think Drake was serious about tug-of-war, take a look at Monica's face! |
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| Sad but True: The kids beat our youth in team skiing. (See Sam, your skis are still being put to good use). |
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| Jess actually beat the kids in the limbo though. But since Jess is only 4'11'' it kind of makes sense. |
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| Snack time...the most anticipated part of the day! |
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| My lovely wife, always behind the scenes keeping things running smoothly. |
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| Refilowe was one of our craft leaders |
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| This is serious business... |
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| ...especially when there is candy at stake for the best drawing! |
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| A beautiful young woman, inside and out. |
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| Joint ministry bringing young people into real fellowship. |
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| Fortunately there were times to take a quick break. Teboho took on a lot of the coordination while at Bible Club, while Abby and Jess both were indispensable in their roles in preparing the youth and overseeing activities in Kultwanong. |
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| Shadrach, one of the young men from Kultwanong sharing the Gospel message and inviting the kids to church. |
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| Children in small groups hearing the Gospel in their own language. |
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| Here's the whole team |
