This was a special Mother’s Day for very non-traditional reasons. I taught my first children’s church service completely in Spanish. I had the help of the regular team to do dramas and visual lessons, cheap but I did the actual “preaching” part. I was very nervous walking into this because I was worried my Spanish would falter and I would tell them something completely wrong! In complete Colombian style, prescription the team was supposed to give me their plans at the beginning of the week, and Saturday night I finally got their plans that I was supposed to incorporate into my lesson, so I walked in feeling very unprepared.
Children’s church has two groups per service. The first hour the children ages 5 – 8 are in the chapel and for the second hour the 9 – 12 year olds are in. The first group went as best as it could have possibly gone! The words flowed out easily and the kids were great with interaction. I’m glad it went well because there were some adults and pastors sitting in to watch my presentation. I felt great after this first group! The second group, however, was a little bit tougher. They are much more stone-faced and still. They always open the services with praise and worship and these are the kids who just stand there, most don’t sing and clapping hands is just about out of the question. So coming off of a group of kids who like to jump around and get involved, I was caught off guard a little bit with the difference. It still went well, but I felt like my presentation didn’t come off quite as smoothly as the previous hour. At the end, however, one of the boys came and kissed me on the cheek and thanked me for preaching. He said it was really special. That made my mother’s day!!
As for my own family, poor Corey was in bed with a terrible stomach virus, but he was able to pull himself together to take me to a nice dinner in the evening. Alex and Maggie each made me really cool necklaces! We spent the afternoon playing games together and just having some good old family time. What a wonderful day!
~Tona