Christian Union

Christian Union is the name for a new program the volunteers have started with kids from the Vissershok Primary School. They started it with 8 kids from the 5th and 6th grades. They meet twice a week and go through the basics of the Christian faith with them. It runs for the same period of time as a quarter in the school year. So they are just finishing with the first group of kids this week and will start with a new group of kids after the 2 week break in July. They use a variety of methods to teach; skits, songs, stories, brainstorming, small groups....and they usually give them a challenge at the end of the day that they follow up on the next meeting. Here is a sampling of some the things they covered:

• God - who He is, what His character is, etc.
• Jesus - birth, ministry, death
• the Holy Spirit
  
• how to pray

I haven't taken part in this session's Christian Union, as we only need 4 volunteers at a time doing the program and I don't work at the Vissershok School. But I did take part in one of the skits they did on prayer. I think its a great program. It gives the volunteers more time to get to know the kids and to go deeper into what the Christian faith is and how to live it out in their lives. Tomorrow is their last meeting and they are having a party - giving them certificates of completion and Bibles, that one of us has sponsored for them. I know the volunteers very much enjoyed putting together the program and carrying it out with the kids. This is a picture of the first class with the four volunteers who ended the program with them....

Belhar Youth Group

Last Friday night we met with the Youth Group at Belhar Church of the Nazarene. They have asked us to assist them in making their youth group stronger and more appealing to the youth in that neighborhood. This first night we just played a bunch of games with them and did some introductions to start getting to know each other. This Friday we are doing a program on encouragement. We will be using games and small group activities to talk to them about the importance of encouraging others. How the Bible can encourage us and it commands us to build up others and not hurt them or tear them down. We have a couple activities to help them practice giving encouragement and will challenge them to look for ways to encourage others around them going forward. Here are some pics from last weeks meeting...some of the pics didn't come out very well, but you can see we are having fun!

Choices and Consequences....

Sunday, June 3rd, was a "Youth Day" at the churches around South Africa. So one of the churches in town asked us to come and lead a program titled "Choices and Consequences" during their church service. It was so much fun! We started off with a funny ice-breaker where we introduced each other, but had a glass of water that we pretended to drink from and then spit it back out, then we introduced the person next to us and gave them the glass to also take a drink! The congregation really thought we were drinking the water the last person had spit out! We actually had water in our mouths already and only pretended to drink....it didn't have any symbolism but was just a way to get the congregation loosened up...they thought it was pretty hilarious! Here's a pic of us lined up for our intros, that's my hand on the right of the pic as I did the greeting and started the introductions.
Then we acted like we all had different ideas of what we were doing next; one person started saying "ok, now we are going to do a skit." then someone else says "I thought we were doing a dance", I said "I thought we were going to sing a song!", someone else said "I thought we were going camping!" We were all speaking over top each other, then one of us said "Hey, guys! Stop it! What are you doing?" then went on to explain that we all have to make choices every day and obviously we have problems making decisions as a group, and sometimes its hard to make the right choice and we can be confused, etc... Then we did a game show titled "Change Your Choice" where we took volunteers from the audience and they had to choose between 3 boxes that had prizes in them. Some prizes were good, some bad and some just strange! The audience could participate, yelling out which box they thought the person should choose. After they see what prize they got, they then have a decision to make of whether to keep their prize or "change their choice" and pick a different prize, again the audience is yelling out what they think the person should do. The aim of the game was just to get them thinking about choices and how sometimes we are pressured into making a choice by others, but it is us who have to live with the consequence of the choice we make, not the other people. Here's a picture of Kate, one of our volunteers from England, who was emcee of the game...
Then Alicia, a new volunteer from the States , got up and delivered the message. She used the story where Joshua had to choose whether to follow what God told him to do about taking the city of Jericho - walking around the city for 6 days, then the last day walking around 7 times and then shouting and the city walls would fall- surely the people had to think this idea was crazy! But Joshua knew God was faithful and would do what he promised, so they followed God's orders and the city walls fell! We also have to decide every day whom we will follow with the choices we make. She shared some of her testimony about times when she prayed to God about a decision she had to make and how we sometimes don't want to listen to or do what God is telling us, but we will always find in the end, following God will lead to life, doing it on our own leads to heartache, disappointment, etc. However, even when we make bad choices, God is still with us, will redeem us and through Him we can turn our lives around. Below is a pic of Alicia speaking.....
Lastly, we went through the memory verse for the day, portions of Joshua 24: 15-17...but we had portions of the verse on 7 different cards and we stood up in the incorrect order and had kids come up and try to get us in the correct order - "If you decide it is a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you'd rather serve....as for us, we'll worship God!" Then we had the congregation repeat it with us a couple times. We finished with a prayer. We stood at the door to greet people as they left and they were very gracious and thankful to us for coming. After the service they invited us to stay for treats with the kids. It was really cool to spend a little time with them, again they were so thankful we came and they invited us to do a camp with them in September, hopefully that will happen! It was a great experience, we enjoyed it as much as they did.....here's a pic of the congregation......

Goodbye Tina!!!

So this is Tina and I at the airport. She was one of my closest friends in the house. She left to go back home to Germany on June 1st. It again was so hard to say goodbye! I told her I think she was the person in the house whom I was most like in terms of temperament and personality. We had lots of fun together - lots of great memories that I will always cherish!! Tina & I both hope we can do some travelling together in the future! Miss you lots, Tina!!