Lions, Kids and Glue..........Oh my


We have been using the kitchen as a classroom on Sunday mornings.
We usually have between 65-95 children ages 2-12. The building is 20 x 20.

Yes it is tight and

sometimes very loud. But it is better than meeting outside when the weather is bad, and it is much easier to keep track of the two and three year olds.

Our team includes Fabs, Jen, Alora, Katrina, Bryan and Aldo. We always start with a few songs. Jen and Fabs are great at this. Next comes prayer time. We usually have one child lead the prayer. Lesson time, Thank God for Fabs Spanish and willing heart. Jen and Bryan are awesome back ups. I seem to be the peace keeper. When you put that many little active boys together they can get a little "excited". It really helps that I am a Mom and I can give the "Mom" look across the room and it is a universal language. I have found a couple of great websites that have English/Spanish lessons, puzzles, coloring pages etc. For free. Crafts are really popular. The children do not often get to do craft projects. Most churches and schools can not afford even basic supplies for their classes.
The children love craft time and it can get pretty messy, but the pleasure on their little faces is reward enough for the clean up ahead of us. After crafts we have a coloring sheet and then it is time for our snack. A child says a prayer for our food and we hand out snack.

This week we learned about Daniel. We had a craft project of a lions head made from a paper plate and tissue paper. The children crowd around two small tables, a bench we use as a table, and the rest have to sit on the floor. We passed out the plates, a small Dixie cup with glue and a q-tip, and lots and lots of tissue paper. The children love making their lion faces, some take great time and care in their lions others went with an abstract approach. I love to see my older kids helping the younger ones. It is really sweet. I had brought markers from home and wow they loved them. They took very good care of them, putting lids on and making sure I had them back. We only had one instance of face coloring.

A lot of the children are starved for positive adult attention and I really try to praise each of the children every week for something. This Sunday I was covered in glue. They would come over to me, pat my arm or pull my skirt to get my attention. Their little hands covered in glue and sticky tissue paper. They look at me with their beautiful eyes and shy grins as they hold their papers up for my inspection. I lavishly praise their work, it is like a light suddenly shines on their faces, they skip off telling each other of the praises their work received.

Even though we only have worship services on Sunday it still usually last for 2-2 1/2 hours.
Sometimes it is hard to keep such a large and varied age group busy. There has been times when we are literally weak in the knees(you try doing head, shoulders, knees and toes half a dozen times and you will understand).

The class ends with a prayer and then a hug and kiss on the cheek from every sweet little boy and girl that we have been blessed to spend the Lords day singing, worshiping, laughing, praising and sharing Gods message with. I know as the teachers we are the ones who are suppose to be teaching these little ones, but I can tell you that I feel I am the one being taught every week, patience, pleasure in the little things (glue and tissue paper), joy in a word of praise, the light of Jesus on smiling faces that he has provided for me every week. I know that I have been blessed beyond measure. Blessed you might ask? What is the blessing of a small warm room stuffed to overflowing with noisy, excited, often dirty young children? I challenge you to come and find out for yourself. You will not be able to resist the tug of a small hand in yours, a child almost knocking you off of your feet in the excitement of just being with you, 65 little heads bowed to pray to our father, little voices raised to sing his praises and dozens and dozen of sweet little ones lined up for a word of encouragement. You can not forget the hugs and kisses hello and good-bye. Yes I am blessed.

We have been building classrooms onto the church. To say I am excited is a great understatement. We are looking forward to having more room and to being able to divide the younger children from the older ones. We still have the considerable problem of funds however. I have been thinking about this problem. I believe that this could be a wonderful opportunity for Sunday school classes in the States to participate in this ministry. Wouldn't it be wonderful to get a class to sponsor our Sunday school class? They could exchange pictures and letters, maybe they could do the same lesson and craft projects on the same Sunday and exchange pictures of the classes working on them and of course a photo of them with the finished projects. We have access to most supplies with the exception of books. I think that this would be a wonderful way to bring our young people together.

If you are interested in this or any of our work over here please e-mail us at klugefamily@gmail.com we would love to hear your comments, ideas or questions.

We love and miss you all.