Children's Day

October 12 in Brazil is holiday called Children's Day.  It typically means that kids get out of school and get gifts from family and friends.  Teachers usually host a party or event at their schools beforehand or close to and frequently take classes on special fun field trips.  Our church hadn't done anything special on a grand scale for quite some time.  Our young people were interested and so they got to work.

They organized a brand new to them skit based on the Wordless Book colors that someone had seen on Youtube!  The puppet people came up with a new story.  Several young ladies made some new song posters. One on the Sunday School classes sang a special song and some of our flute recorder students did a special presentation.  Prize bags were made ready and a snack was arranged.  Invitations were given out by door to door visits around the church and near areas where we have hosted neighborhood Bible clubs over the past year.

Byron and I were minimally involved.  Byron was asked to do the final devotional message and I was asked to take care of a group game activity.  Byron went out with the inviters and I made sure the snack lady had everything she needed to prepare and serve.  Other than that, our young people did it all.

There were about 85 children present and around 10 accompanying adult guests.  All said and done there were more than 100 people with our gang and own regular kids.  One thirteen year old fellow talked to Byron about a salvation decision.  We hope he will start to come to Sunday School and other church activities.

All in all the event seemed to be a success.  Not perfect, but well done!  

Pray for our congregation and our future plans.  We had hoped very much to see the work more independent at this stage with us moving on to some new ministry after our 2018 furlough.  Our group is mostly made up of young people.  We have few adults actively involved in any leadership roles.  Most of the adults who attend meetings are not church members for varying reasons.  We continue to pray for adults that see the need to get right and busy for God.  Pray as we evaluate our future plans and look for God's guidance.