Verbum Dei Apostolate with Kids

“Let the children come to me”

Our Verbum Dei mission also includes work with children. How vital to form the young ones in faith and not to ignore them. Sometimes we just see kids in the Church as good for singing a song, or doing a dance. In the gospels, Jesus even got angry with his disciples because they were hindering the children from coming to him. When the disciples tried to turn them away, Jesus said “Let the children come to me” (Matthew 19:14).

In Pansol, we have been working with the kids for around 2 years with a team of missionary disciples - Siony, Muriel, Jonalyn, Mylene, Helen, Cecilia, and Ericka headed by Fr Iwao. Each week we have a School of the Word for kids, teaching them how to pray and to know more Jesus. It can be a challenge to adapt and make relevant the Gospel message for young ones – our creativity is stretched, but it is so encouraging also to see how sensitive they are to God’s Word. As we hear in Matthew 21:16 "Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked him. "Yes," replied Jesus, "have you never read, "'From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise'?"
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Recently we had a series called “Bible heroes.” In one activity, we looked at Joshua who, with the sound of the trumpet, brought down the walls of Jericho:“When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city” Joshua 6:20  In this activity, the children were asked to recreate the same bible scene, building a wall using lego blocks. Let us continue to pray for the children, and that we can continue to build up their faith.

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With thanks to Iwao and the WordNews team