In the month of February 2019, children improved their spiritual life by learning about the life of Jesus. However, it was children who didn’t start school early and those who returned home at 1pm. On average, the project officer met between 17-30 children per day. These small numbers enable children develop personal relationships with trainers. The trainer also learns their weaknesses and devises ways of helping them improve.
Children participated in different activities and these included religious education, basic literacy, relational ministry, home visits, school outreach and games and sports. The objective was to improve children’s Christian life through religious education, boost their education through basic literacy and support them enjoy their right to play to improve physical fitness.
Bible study
During Bible study, the main theme was mainly about the life of Jesus. It was preached from the book of Mathew 5:16 where Jesus gave many sermons during his ministry, teaching people a different way to live and telling them that they could never do enough good things to go to heaven, but that God loves them and would forgive their sins if they believed in Jesus as their savior. The aim of this teaching was for children to learn that Jesus wants them to be His disciples and to commit to follow Him by obeying what he teaches them in the Bible.
Children also learnt about sin and how everyone has sinned at some point when tempted. They also learnt that as the son of God, Jesus is the only person in history who lived a perfect life without sin. They were informed that without Jesus’ help, they could not resist temptation. This was emphasized in the book of Luke 4:1. The project officer also narrated to children the story of temptation of Jesus. Cards were printed and used to narrate the story to help children understand better. At the end of Bible study, children were encouraged to emulate Jesus’ life according to the teachings taught as each one of them went back home with a lesson such as obeying God and loving more friends.
Children’s lessons were backed up by trainers encouraging them to go according to their lessons learnt. Lessons often change children’s behavior and this contributes to a Godly violence free society.
Singing session
Singing sessions were to develop children’s language skills, but also encourage self-confidence before their peers. This is because it’s sometimes hard for a child to stand and sing before others. But when they are before one person, they are able to sing without being shy. These sessions helped them build confidence.
Shading
This was to supplement on what children learnt during Bible study. It was also to encourage them improve their art skills when still young since shading is one of the activities that children like to participate. It is used as a way of picking children’s view on the good things they emulate from Jesus. Shading is often done to groom children into imaginary Biblical examples, thus grooming them into living a Godly life.
Visiting the sick
A mother to one of the children from the Mulago slum had been sick for two weeks. She could not sit and struggled to talk. She had a mass of water in her stomach and in the heart. She was taken for cancer screening to detect if there were cancer cells. Old age at 75 also contributed to her illness. She was unable to eat anything but tried to drink. We visited her and we are still praying for her to recover from the pain. We also visit other people in the slums that are sick and pray with them for comfort.
Other activities during the month of February included home visits, counselling, School outreach Programme at Grace Fellowship Primary School, among others.
