Letting the Current Pass Through: Burmese Youth Group, Holy Spirit Church

"When you look at the inner workings of electrical things, you see wires. Until the current passes through them, there will be no light. That wire is you and me. The current is God. We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, to produce the light of the world, Jesus, in us. Or we can refuse to be used and allow darkness to spread."  Mother Teresa 

I just came across this quote by Mother Teresa and I think it is a wonderful message for anyone doing what they are called to do. It may be at church, work, home. Where ever you are called be, we are like the wire passing on the current of God's love, respect, and acceptance.   Our family began working with the Burmese ministry earlier this year.  And I have no doubt they have been a much greater "wire" to us than we will ever be to them.

I'm a firm believer that children learn more from our actions than any words we share.  So, it was important to us that we include Elijah & Jonah in this endeavor.  Elijah quickly found his place.  He loved "teaching" the pre-school kids.  And he took his job very seriously. He helped us buy coloring books and puzzles. Then worked each Sunday after mass with these young children.  It's been a real source of pride for him.  Here he is being a little wire...

Now, that I sit here in reflection, I realize that Jonah has been a wire too.  He has been a bridge.  See, love is universal.  And the love from mother to son knows no barrier.  From our first day working with this ministry, there was a kind lady Oo Meh, who gravitated to Jonah.  It started with a smile.  Now she takes him around to visit with her family, feeds him, tells me when he needs to be changed.  But even more than that, she helped us build a relationship with some of the families in the Burmese ministry.  She speaks little english and I do not speak her language at all but we both understand love.  So in a sense we connected in a greater language.  I find it amazing that a baby can work as a catalyst for the church. 

A few weeks ago, in an attempt to be more organized, the teachers with the ministry decided that we needed to divide up the adults and young adults.  Daniel and I decided that we would take the youth group.  I was a bit apprehensive about this change because we'd just started to build a relationship with the adults.  Elijah felt so important working with the youngest children.  However, it still felt like the right thing to do.  The youth group had our third meeting today and we really enjoyed it.  We are still in the process of getting to know the youth; so, we thought we would try out this "webbing" ice breaker activity that I found on the internet.  

WEBBING ICE BREAKER 

Here's how it works:

Materials:  Ball of Yarn 

*We all sit in a large circle.  

1.  Teacher starts as a model.  "My name is Allison and I enjoy ___________."  

2.  Wrap some of the yarn around your hand.  Then unwrap enough to allow you to toss the yarn to someone you choose.  

3.  Toss the yarn to someone across the room and they follow your model (name and something he/she enjoys).

Here's some pics of our web:

At the end of the activity we had the opportunity to learn a bit about each person in the room.  We also learned the common things that webbed us together.  Some of the things our group had in common were:  

1.  Reading

2.  Cooking

3.  Sports (Volleyball, Basketball & Soccer)

4.  Video Games & Playing on the Computer

5.  Eating :-)

The kids also said they were bound together by wanting to learn more about the church, God, Jesus & prayer.   The visual of the web also allowed us to talk more about what happens if one person lets go of their thread. We unravel.  We all depend on one another.  Really, just like Mother Teresa said it is like wire.  Our energy can pass from one to another or it can be stopped by one person letting go.  

Just for fun as we wrapped the yarn back into a ball we checked to see what we could remember each person enjoyed and surprisingly enough someone in the circle remembered what every single person enjoyed!     

Genesis - The Beginning


The kids spent the last 15 minutes or so of our time together learning a bit more about the Creation.  Each group was responsible for creating a poster to teach others about what happened on one of the days of Creation.  Here's what they came up with.

This is all 7 days.  The close ups are below.  

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Daniel and I are thankful to the youth group kids for being the wires that bring the message to our children.  Our whole family had an amazing day.  We look forward to getting to know you.  

 Thanks be to God.