Teaching Little Hearts

This week I have the privilege of teaching the preschoolers during VBS in Davis City, Iowa. Most of the kids in this community do not go to church anywhere because there are not a whole lot of Bible teaching churches in the area, in fact in the two towns we are visiting, there are only 3. I am so blessed to be able to introduce these little hearts to my savior! This week they have been learning that God should be the guide of their life and that they can trust him to lead them in what is right and what is best for them.   It is my prayer that I am able to plant seeds of faith in the hearts of these precious little ones. I am so glad I am able to be used by God to teach this amazing group of kids.
Our verse for this week is  "God will help me know what to do". Isaiah 30:21 (paraphrased)

Family Missions

This summer on Thursday nights, the kids have been learning about how missionaries help those in other parts of the world, and how they can be missionaries.

Somewhere along the way I picked up this definition of a missionary that I have been sharing with the kids each night as we learn. " A missionary is someone who goes somewhere to tell another person about Jesus love, no matter if it is across the hall, across the street, across town, across the country, or across the world." I want each of these kids to know that they can be a missionary, and that it doesn't have to wait until they are grown ups. Every one can share the love of God with someone else.

During my lifetime I have had the opportunity to go on mission trips to other locations. And some of my favorite trips have been those where families are ministering together. One such trip was one where a group from the church I was attending went to another state to do Vacation Bible School for the kids and teens in that community. You would think that this would be a job just for adults, as they would be the ones doing the teaching. But we had whole families that went, and so the kids were given a job to do at VBS as well. Their job was to show the love of God through friendship. The kids we took had already experienced this VBS so now they were to help the others around them understand the stories we were telling. They got to be the ones to play with the kids and begin conversations about the God they were hearing about. Everyone on that missions team had a job to do, including the kids. And I have to tell you that watching the kids on our team, play and talk with the kids in the community was a joyful thing to see. Connections were made that would have had no place had we not brought peers for the kids in the community. And the joy on the faces of the kids on the team is almost indescribable. No one is too little, or too young to share God's love with someone else. I wish that more families would embrace this pattern of ministering together through missions. It doesn't have to be going to a foreign country. Family missions opportunities can come through serving at a homeless shelter, a nursing home, or even partnering with an intercity ministry.

I would like to encourage you as parents and grandparents to seek out opportunities where your whole family can serve together. Show your kids that missions work knows no age limit. I can promise that the work may be hard but will definitely be rewarding!

Continually Growing at The Grove!

Miss Megan

Happy Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day

I love looking up creative or silly holidays and filling up my calendar with them. It makes the weeks more interesting, and sometimes it even coincides with an event I can do with the kids in my ministry. Since we do not have a Wednesday midweek service, I guess I will have to pass on celebrating this particular holiday with all of my kiddos.

Those of you who know me, know that I enjoy doing crazy, silly things with the kids not only because, lets face it, I am a big kid myself, but also because all too often we get caught up in the programming and lessons, and forget to take the time to just have fun with our kids. Now don't get me wrong, I think that Bible lessons are the most important thing we do at church each week, but I also know that it is through the fun and even silly times that memories are made and relationships are built.

So if I were to celebrate Creative Ice Cream Flavors day, it would probably go a little something like this. I would get a bunch of vanilla ice-cream for the kids, because that is the best base for building flavors, and then lay out a whole bunch of toppings and syrups. After each kid builds their very own flavor filled concoction. We will then talk about why they chose the flavors they did. And why different is good. And the truth is different is good, because God made us all different. There may be things about us that are similar, just like there are toppings that were used that are similar but no one person, or ice-cream is exactly the same. We have an awesome, creative creator who made us all different and we can celebrate that.  And we can celebrate that he made us all creative too, even if it only extends to ice cream flavor creating.

Creatively Growing at The Grove!

Miss Megan