This is a blog of ministry resources that I personally found helpful for my World Race. Rest assured that you WILL still have the experience, probably many times during your Race, of standing before a group of people completely unprepared and unsure of what you are to do; those instances will grow your faith as you rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance! Know that even when everything seems to go wrong, the Holy Spirit WILL still take whatever it is you’ve managed to cobble together and use it for His glory! Just make sure you don’t use that knowledge as an excuse for laziness! You won’t regret taking a few hours to download these resources to your computer before you leave for the field (remember, many times you won’t have access to Wifi, so you want to be sure that you are able to access these resources offline.)
-
You WILL do children’s ministry on The World Race! Download Christian children’s songs onto your computer and/or iPod. If possible, make sure to include songs in the languages of the children you will be working with. Use WinX YouTube Downloader (click here to download) to save YouTube videos for use when you are offline. Either bring a Bluetooth speaker with you or make sure someone on your team has one. Here are some YouTube videos of Christian children’s songs in Spanish that worked very successfully for my team in Central America:
-
There’s a strong chance that you may be asked to provide a drama for a church service and/or children’s program. Sometimes you won’t know until the last minute and will have to make something up on the fly (Bible stories are always a good idea!), but other times you will have some warning and be able to prepare something. Download these dramas to your computer so you can have them on hand. Most don’t require any speaking, while a few use simple Spanish vocabulary. I had to download VLC in order to play them on my computer (https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.es.html).
http://vcharvesters.org/mission-trips-2/
(The dramas are about halfway down the page)
-
You will probably preach before a congregation at some point! When you have forewarning, you may want to have some sermon outlines you can reference for inspiration. Again, be sure to copy and paste or download these onto your computer so you can access them while offline. This website provides some great outlines:
-
You WILL teach English while on the Race! Most of us wonder, Where do I even start?? I found this curriculum for teaching English as a Second Lanugage (ESL) and downloaded it to my computer. Obviously, in one month you can’t get through all of this, but I did find it helpful for at least coming up with ideas of what to teach. I also recommend purchasing the book 102 ESL Games and Activities for New and Prospective Teaching for your Kindle. It’s very cheap and has a lot of great ideas for making your classes fun!
http://www.usalearns.org/Content/Documents/ScopeSequence.pdf
-
If you play an instrument, you may be asked to teach said instrument at some point during the Race (because you are, of course, an expert.) It would be helpful for you to have chord diagrams, sheet music, etc on hand if you find yourself in that situation.
That’s all, my dear fellow planners. One final quote before I leave you – something to write on a piece of paper and tuck into your Bible, to calm you when you have no space and time to plan and you’re starting to freak out:
“Prayer is the test of everything; prayer is also the source of everything; prayer is the driving force of everything; prayer is also the director of everything. If prayer is right, everything is right. For prayer will not allow anything to go wrong.”
You’re going to have a great Race!!!
