Here’s just a blog of what a normal of ministry has looked like.
My team has 2 ministries – a daycare program and an after-school program, both for at-risk kids. At the first ministry, we arrive at 10am. We play with the kids on the playground then go inside for a lesson taught by us. Over the past three weeks, we’ve talked about music, animals, numbers, and several other things. We try to teach them English through repetition and activities. We have to keep them occupied for an hour. At 11am, the older kids go upstairs to learn some more while the younger kids get ready for lunch. The workers lead them in a prayer that is used everywhere. Generally, their lunch consists of rice, beans, and chicken or potatoes. They have a little juice to go with it, but they can’t drink it until they’ve finished eating. Once they are all done, they go brush their teeth and go upstairs for a nap. In the meantime, my team washes the dishes and sweeps and mops the floors. After the younger kids go up, the bigger kids come down and we repeat the process. We leave at noon, eat lunch on the bus while driving to our second ministry.
Our second ministry is completely different. When we get there, we don’t know what we’re doing until we get there. Sometimes it’s painting the stepping stones, painting the alphabet on the sidewalk, or washing toys. There’s been a lot of painting. Some of my team goes to the classrooms to lay the kids down for naps. I don’t do that often because the kids don’t lay down and it’s hard to keep them under control. I generally do whatever the principal asks us to do. That varies from painting door frames, wooden blocks, stones, and several other things. It’s definitely been a process for seeing the fruit of our labor. We get a snack around 3:30 or 4pm. They encourage us to take a break and rest. It’s really nice when we get coffee. We get picked up at 5pm to go back to the base. It’s about a 30-45 minute drive, so we sometimes have team time on the way home.
We go to these ministries Monday through Friday. However, there’s about to be a change. We will no longer go to the daycare (first ministry). Instead, we will go to a completely different ministry during the week. I don’t really know what it is, but I know it involves kids. As for the second ministry, we will only go there on Saturdays. I’m not sure why we’re changing, but we really go wherever we’re needed.
I would add pictures, but I’m having technical difficulties right now downloading pictures. Once I figure out what’s wrong, I’ll post pictures on my next blog.
Thanks for reading!
