Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Kempton Park Holiday Club


Earlier this week on Monday and Tuesday, Megan and I helped some of the other missionaries here in Kempton Park run a Holiday Club for about 30 of our local church children before they start school again after the summer holiday break. We spent all day teaching them different hour-long bible lessons on figures such as David, Samuel, Esther, and Daniel (they also acted out scenes from the bible themselves). We played educational games, sang praise songs, painted custom T-shirts with bible verses, made woodworking toys and painted them, provided nutritional meals for them, and they all were able to spend the night and sleep over at the Girl Guides Camp, which they really enjoyed (the South African equivalent of the Girl Scouts).

Almost all of the children are from area townships and live in impoverished conditions. The Girl Guides Camp is in dilapidated condition itself, with knee-high weeds growing all around it, and we literally had to sweep up a dead bat and bat droppings from all over the floor before we could let the children inside. Nonetheless, one of the children wrote us a thank-you letter saying how much she appreciated being able to stay in such a “palace.” The children were wonderfully appreciative and a joy to spend time with and teach.



Picking up the kids in Esselen Park.



All of the children received a Kingdom of God T-shirt.



Teaching a class on David and Goliath.



Megan helping the children look up a bible verse.



Sis. Laura Iredale from England with a young student.



Bro. Mat Collard from England working with the kids.



Megan teaching an hour-long class on Esther.



Explaining the story of Jonah and the whale to a couple of students in between activities.



During breaks, the children loved to play soccer. I asked one very little boy who was quite adept at soccer how long he had been playing. He said 7 years. I was shocked and asked him how old he was. He said 10, meaning he had been playing since he was 3 years old. Africans are absolutely obsessed with soccer and even tiny children are fluid at it and know all the rules.



Bro. Hendri Viljoen teaching an object lesson to the children.



Sis. Lieszl Scheepers telling the children the day’s schedule.



Megan helping one of the girls trace a bible verse pattern on the T-shirt she will paint.



Karabo proudly holding up her freshly painted T-shirt.



The kids all holding up their T-shirts they painted themselves.



Sis. Leona Scheepers teaching the children a flip game with checkers.



Hendri helping the children with woodworking.



Laura is gifted with the guitar and plays a song for the children to sing along with.



Megan helping Tumi with a bible word puzzle.


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