Originally printed in Down to Earth (May 2019) - Emmanuel International UK What do you do with over 175 children, on a hot, dusty day in January? Lots of games, songs, Bible stories and memory verses! It has been a busy 2019 for the Child Discipleship ministry in Pader, Northern Uganda, starting with organizing “fun days” for all 13 churches we partner with in Sunday School ministry. Over the course of eight days (some churches were combined together) we ministered to more than 1,030 children, sharing about the love of God based on Mark 10:13-16 – the story of Jesus welcoming and blessing the children. It’s not always easy to manage a crowd of 100+ children, especially when there is a language barrier, but one things for certain: the children had a lot of fun! Balloon games, tug of war, parachute, musical chairs, and water games. The sun was hot, but it wasn’t going to stop the children from having fun! In January of 2018 we launched the Child Discipleship ministry, as we recognized the need to help churches reach and disciple their children. Too often children are marginalized in the church, treated less as a blessing and more as a source of distraction during the Sunday service. So we began working with 13 churches across five different denominations to equip their Sunday School teachers with the skills and resources they need to disciple their youngest members. The work went very well in 2018, with 23 Sunday School teachers trained and followed-up by Concy (our tireless Child Discipleship field worker). At the beginning of the year only three of our partner churches had an active Sunday School, but by the end of the year all 13 churches were active and reaching over 900 children! But in a country where half of the population is under the age of 16, there is still a lot more work to do. With all of the work needed, it was a real blessing to have the assistance of Julie, a primary teacher from Canada who volunteered with us for three months at the start of the year. Working as a team, Julie and Concy together with our trained Sunday School teachers, they were able to run the fun days. It was such an encouragement to see what the children have learned over the past year, as they recited memory verses, performed dramas, and presented songs. But it wasn’t only for the children, it was also a chance to meet with the parents and encourage them to take up their role in discipling their children. But the busyness didn’t stop there. This year we expanded our support to eight new churches, but we also began to partner with five primary schools to create “Good News” clubs. Schools provide a unique opportunity, because they provide access to all of the children in the community – even those who are unchurched. They also provide a neutral ground, where we can reach all of the children without issues of denomination. These clubs are currently on hiatus, as we prepare for the second school term, but during the first term they were able to reach 1, 067 children from the nursery level to Primary 6. During this school holiday we’re training teachers from each of these schools, as we start the process of making these clubs independent and self-sustaining. It has been so encouraging to see the change God has created in less than a year and a half. We have seen Sunday School teachers empowered to do their work, and growing in their calling to disciple children. We have seen church leaders understanding the value of children, and the difference that teaching can make in their lives. We have heard from school administrators and parents who have seen a difference in the children, and from children who have brought their parents to church – and to faith. As Jesus said, “let the children come to me.” It is our prayer that children keep coming to church and to the Good News clubs, as they also come to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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“I am one person who has been changed due to this ministry. I was a person who had no religion. I did not pray. I liked to do worldly things... I started to join the Bible study. Then and there I started knowing that God really wants me to be his child.” Over the past two years we have been training student leaders in five different secondary schools in leadership and discipleship. A key part of this training has been teaching them how to lead discussion based Bible study groups with their fellow students (pictured below). We recently had our first exchange visit between two secondary schools participating in the ministry, to encourage them and give them an opportunity to learn from one another, and we were very thankful to see the fruit the Lord is creating! The fruit is most evident in the testimonies of the students themselves.
At Lagwai Seed Secondary School they are having a weekly Bible study group, and the head student responsible testified that the training and the Bible study groups have helped the students learn how to interpret the Bible. At Pader Town College they have been meeting in their Bible study groups every evening, and the student leader said that the experience of leading the Bible study groups has grown their leadership abilities and given them the courage to speak up more. The most powerful testimony, however, was that of Mercy (quoted above). She said that she was not a religious person and didn’t believe in God, despite her Catholic upbringing, but she was interested in the Bible study groups and started to attend during the first term of school. Through her participation in the Bible study groups she learned that God wanted her to be His child, and she came to faith. During the school holidays, between first and second term, she went back home and shared her newfound faith with her family – and now her brother is a believer as well! Now, she is an active advocate to her fellow students to take the Bible study seriously and she has encouraged them to invite all of their friends, because she has seen the impact on her own life. It was so encouraging to see these students taking up leadership roles and to hear their testimonies of the impact, and we hope that this points to success in our goal of building up young people to be leaders not only in their schools but also in their families, churches and communities. We have known and experienced for ourselves how strongly student ministries can shape a person's character and set the course of their lives. How we pray this small ministry will have a lifelong impact on the lives of these students, wherever in the world the Lord sends them! Were any of you out there praying for a solution for us to be able to log into our website editor again? Well, to anyone who did, we'd like to say THANK YOU! Quite by accident, we stumbled across a solution to our problem. While looking for a computer program that would allow us to do audio editing for the church health messages that we are planning to soon air on the radio, we were shown an advertisement for a web-browser called "Opera" (hence the title to this post!) which includes a free, built-in VPN. We thought we would try it, to see if it would work for our website - and it did!
So we are happy to say we're back online! Hopefully we won't run into more technical glitches that hinder our ability to update this website. |
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October 2021
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