I’m over children’s ministry.
Okay—I like children’s ministry. I see that it’s a significant part of building the body of Christ and in children’s overall development. I love children. I love being with them. I want to have children, one day. I’ve actually been told, on the Race, that I have a gift for caring for children.
But right now, I am so over working with children.
See, on the weekdays, Team Luminous works at this place called the Human Dignity Center (HDC). It’s primarily a school for children in crisis—they are fatherless, they are motherless, they are abused, they don’t get fed at home, among other things. They range from age three to age 11. The school is run by Jerusalem Ministries, a Christian non-profit, so the facility also serves as a place where mothers in the township can learn skills and work to earn a living, as well as learn about the reality of God.
This is where we work! (They received recent sponsorship from Coca-Cola–cool, huh?)
HDC provides breakfast and lunch for the kids. This is the morning meal.
Me, caught between the two Peters (Peter Morkel, on the left, is our weekend ministry contact. He takes us to different townships and has a HUGE heart for the poor and for uniting the body across racial barriers. Peter Freeman, on the right, is one of our ministry contacts during the week and the principal of HDC. He is highly respected, feared, and loved by the kids.)
Our team has been working on IEPs (individualized education programs) with kids from the 1st grade class who need extra help; we have occasionally taught in the kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade classrooms; and we help run the after-school program. We get picked up from our house at 7:30 AM, and leave HDC at 4 PM. It’s a long day of constant yelling, crying, being jumped on, and breaking up fights* (the yelling and crying mostly coming from the kids). It’s easy for me to forget that the majority of these kids are considered “special needs” in some way—whether they are physically ill (many of the kids have AIDS), mentally slow, emotionally damaged, or some combination of those. I have expectations from previous experiences working in schools for how kids at certain ages should behave and learn, and I need to remember that I can’t necessarily expect the same from them.
We are human jungle gyms.
At the end of the day, though, I love these kids. I want them to know Jesus and grow up well because of it. I don’t think I will ever fully understand what they have been through and are going through in their lives outside of school, and it pains me to think about. I may not be able to literally pull them out of their bad situations, but what I can do is show them love as much as I am capable of while I am with them. And I have hope for them, knowing that Jesus is their ultimate savior.
Me and Ayandisa (aka Aya). She's a natural leader and a really smart girl. With the right guidance, she's going to grow into an amazing woman. She had a sore on her thumb the other day and we prayed for God to heal it, together 🙂
The 2nd graders love dancing and singing! I've helped teach their class a few times. They make me want to pull my hair out (not really, but something to that effect), but they've become my favorite class at the school.
Luphelo and I, dancing during break. For IEPs, I mainly work with this guy. He's such a little man 🙂
Needless to say, I think all this, in combination with busy weekends and it being our sixth month out here, I am tired. But I am not spent, I am not done. I am, however, ready for debrief in a week, and I am ready for a potential break from children’s ministry next month. (That's just how I feel right now–we’ll see what happens, haha).
"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" – Jesus (Luke 18:16).
"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me" – Jesus (Mark 9:37).
*There are a lot of fights. Last week, I had three separate fights going on around me, and I tried to break up all three of them at the same time (everyone else had their hands full, too!). At home, the kids don’t have great examples set for them as to how to behave and interact with other people; so sometimes, many of them will pretend to beat each other up or yell angrily at one another because that’s the kind of behavior they see at home. It all begins as play, sometimes like role-playing, but it quickly turns into real aggression, and that’s when the tears start—real and fake ones. It’s scary to bear witness to because some of the looks on these kids’ faces reflect real anger and hatred, even though they don’t really have legitimate cause to be angry.
