Hello Everyone,
We have just finished a fun-filled and hectic week at Stirling Holiday Bible Club in East London. On Monday the holiday club began and over 90 children arrived from the ages 5-13 and the club itself ran every morning from 8am-1pm with some children being collected in buses and others being dropped off by parents.
At holiday club the Wellington team, the youth helping from Stirling Presbyterian and Courtney and Steven all arrive at the church for 7am, which was definitely the earliest that some of us had been up since school ended. Each day we begin our mornings as a team with some breakfast and a meeting to discuss the format of the day and pray for what’s about to happen. Then we head outside for the kids arriving and spend some time playing games and chatting to them; the kids are always so energetic when they arrive and some of us have given more piggy backs and danced more this week than we have in our entire lives.
Once everyone has arrived, and hopefully burnt a bit of energy, we head into the church to begin our program which generally follows the format of an introduction, some worship and a talk following the theme of the week which was Superheros. The first Day Ben spoke on “what makes us a superhero” , on Tuesday Jack spoke about prayer, on Wednesday Rebecca explained how Jesus is the light of the world, Peter covered the Armour of God on Thursday and today Steven did the “Gospel in Colour” telling the children the story of the Gospel. They all listen very intently to the talk and when we teach them the memory verse of the week “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me – Philippians 4 v 13”. The kids have been really keen to show off how well they know the memory verse to the leaders all week which is really encouraging to see.
After this, the kids get a snack and we split into our four zones for the kids. These zones are games, craft (put together by Courtney), face painting/bouncy castle and small groups. The small groups gave us a chance to answer any questions that the kids had about God or the story and an opportunity to pray with them individually. We finish with some worship and they taught us a song called Bambalela.
After lunch (which was donated by members of Stirling Presbyterian) the kids go home and we have lunch ourselves and reflect on the day by discussing the positives and negatives as well as praying as a group.
All of the team have loved this experience so much and it has been so encouraging to see how much the kids have engaged with not just the fun and games but the worship talks and small groups too. So many of the kids have offered to pray which has been really filling us with joy. We are also so thankful to Stirling Presbyterian for their hospitality for the opportunity to serve here. We would also like to say thank you to everyone at home who has been continually praying for us as the week has run smoothly and we pray that God has used us and blessed our time this week.