A New Found Love

If the lord has shown me anything it is a newfound love for children. In Guatemala, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic I have had the opportunity to do children’s ministry. Let me tell you, as someone who dreaded helping with Sunday, because I didn’t love kids…the Lord has definitely softened my heart. 

Armenia was no exception through CRU, our ministry partner for the month, my team was able to help with a VBS(vacation Bible school). We were supposed to go from 10:30-2 and honestly I could have stayed all day. 

We started with piling at least 120 kiddos into a small room where they prayed, sang worship songs, and had a lesson. Then one of my teammates was asked to share. Justin shared a word of encouragement and I felt the pressure to do what I knew best, taught them a new game. Truly between the language barrier and the wide age range, it was mass chaos. Still fun but we had to stop before we started haha. 

After I attempted to teach them elbow tag, they wrangled the children up and they started their own and most favorite game. Fort Boyard, split into 4 groups, each group had to go to multiple stations to complete different tasks.

My team helped with the different groups and were also able to walk around to the different stations and play. During this time we also hung out with the different leaders helping with the event. 

A lot of them were in high school and it was sweet to pour into them and encourage them while we were there. They wrote our names in Armenian and then we all wrote different phrases and our names in all the languages we knew. 

 Due to the language barrier we have to use Google translate sometimes to communicate. 

After the game finished we gathered the children for a snack and a craft. While they were eating they had something similar to a talent show. Different kids were able to perform something they had prepared, whether that was a song or a dance. Then they worked on crafts and as they were finishing parents started coming to pick them up. 

It was a blast and I am beyond grateful we had the opportunity to meet CRU. Through meeting them we were able to help with VBS and love on not just the children but the leaders as well. Please pray for CRU and their ministry, as well as the children. Pray that they would be bold in their faith and would be part of the change and awakening in Armenia.