Sitting in my friend’s living room, I realized I looked ridiculous. A bright pink tie-dyed scarf was around my neck, sunglasses were on top of my head, and my hair was in a pony tail. My friend’s kids (ages 2 and 4) had helped me dress up a little while I was over to help plan the next week’s Sunday school for the church my friends are working with. As long as we weren’t out in public, I didn’t really care how outrageous I looked. Any way, we were having fun!
Last week we had started teaching a handful of children ages 2-10 about the Fruit of the Spirit. Beginning with love, we taught the kids the song Jesus Loves Me (we used the the local translation!). They stood together in pairs, sharing a piece of paper with the words to the song. Even though half of them couldn’t read, they squinted at the paper and tried their hardest to say the right words.
Starting out really quiet, we sang the song through once. Getting louder and louder each time, we sang it until I thought we couldn’t go any louder, but the kids insisted they could! Now that they had memorized it, we sang it one last time, and then each pair of kids got to do a “performance” for the whole group. When they got to the chorus, all the kids joined in to sing “Zhi Yesu ai wo! Zhi Yesu ai wo! (Yes, Jesus loves me!)” with out being told to. Little kid voices are so cute!!! It was such a blessing to see them really enjoy learning!
We plan to model how to teach the kids’ class for a few Sundays we have remaining before coming back to America. After that, the parents of some of the kids can continue the Fruit of the Spirit theme. I’m excited about this new class! Before there was nothing; now there is a group of young, eager hearts absorbing everything we teach!