International Children's Program.

One of my favorite J-3 duties is the International English Children's Program, held twice a month in the evening as the "Sunday school" of the International English Service at Kumamoto Lutheran. In the year that I've been assisting with it, we've gotten anywhere from two to six kids on any given Sunday, ranging in age from 3 to 11 and all over the map with regard to English language abilities.

The Palm Sunday story in felt.

Our session usually starts at 5pm with a story from the Bible, and we're lucky enough to own a full set of those Bible story felt boards, which is nice. Did you know those things actually have like 400 pieces? I certainly didn't think about it when I was five years old and in Sunday School. The attention to detail on those things is pretty impressive, and it makes things easier for the littler ones with less English to at least get an idea of what's going on.

After the story, the boys start to get a little antsy, so we go into the games portion. I've found that games involving blindfolds work pretty well for this crowd. When I plan the games I try to connect them to the Bible story (animal-themed Memory for Noah's Ark--'cause the animals went in two by two!), but sometimes it's a bit more of a stretch (for the story of Jacob and Esau, everyone wrapped yarn around their arms to make them "hairy" while blindfolded "Isaac" ran around trying to find them).

"Pin the Jesus on the Donkey."

Last is the craft portion, which is actually the hardest thing to plan with the wild age variations, though by the grace of God we haven't had any total busts. The kids have especially taken to the origami projects we've done... and thus, according to some parents, I've created origami fiends out of some of them (and devastated their parents' memo pads in the process, I'm sure). Then it's a quick prayer and a preliminary clean-up before everyone heads upstairs for the service at 6.

It's really a gift to be able to serve in this way. The kids are, of course, fantastic, though the sheer variety of kids in our little class presents some unique challenges. All the same, it's absolutely a privilege to be a part of these kids' spiritual development, to hear them enthusiastically shout "Jesus is alive!" when I ask them why Easter is such a happy day, to hear a parent tell me the next day that his nine-year-old son is starting to ask deep and thoughtful questions about the Bible. We're not big on resources or numbers (though the felt-board set is pretty sweet), but God still sees us through.

Right now, after briefly flashing forward to the New Testament for Easter, we're in the Old Testament; next Sunday we're going to talk about Jacob wrestling an angel and then make our own angels out of paper plates with hand-traced wings. Please pray for this ministry, and for the kids that come through our doors every first and third Sunday.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
Matthew 19:14 (NIV)