Its now nine-fifteen and we have just returned from the evening service after an amazing day. We had a two hour session with the children for their Sunday School. The normal sunday school was augmented by most of the children, who came to the bible club. We spent the first half of the service practicing for the evening service and the second half took a further story from the life of Moses. The children responded well even though many of them did not normally attend.
After another extensive lunch we came back to Vali & Mihaelas, to finalise our presentation for the evening service. The children arrived on time accompanied by their parents and they sat in their places on the stage without any problems! The senior pastor was due to speak at another Church, but cancelled it and drove the 70km to attend the service. Pastor Sabin, conducted the service with the choir making a number of contributions.
The children had sat for nearly an hour before they started their presentation. They went through the life of Moses using the daily program as a guide. The children gave a summary of each episode presented and recited the memory verse showing the result of their craft activities. At the end of our presentation we were each invited to give our reactions to the weeks work and given a bag of gifts to show the churches appreciation. One of the little girls who made the presentation, came back to us a little later and asked if she could have the bag back, and stormed back to her mother in tears.
Pastor Sabin talked to the children using the story of the snakes in the desert, as his theme. The children continued to sit despite the fact that they’d been there for over 2 hours.
There were over 40 children attending, most not from a church background- some from other churches. The parents were much in evidence with the church being comfortably full with a congregation of over 200. The Pastors were very pleased that a lady prayed out loud for the first time in a service. At the conclusion of the service everyone was invited to light refreshments in the school room, and all the children and parents stayed. We had a interesting time as everyone was keen to try out their English and we were struggling to make ourselves understood.
We had a discussion with the Pastors and Officers and they are keen to repeat the event next year favouring a New Testament theme. We were all overwhelmed by the friendliness of those we met and slightly embarrassed by the enthusiasm towards our work.
We must close as the match being relayed outdoors together with the trumpets and cheers make concentration difficult.
Ken, Mary, Sarah, Glenys and Deirdre.
Children- not all as 'present' as others!
