Friday, November 17, 2006
Scripture Class
One of the opportunities that we have been presented with is teaching in the scripture class at Model Farms High School. It is about 15 minutes drive from the church so the cars we've been lent have been a huge blessing in getting to and from the school. Chris Haines, the scripture teacher is enjoying having us here and looks as though we may be able to continue to teach in the scripture class every school day for the rest of our trip, so we will all be polished public speakers by the time we get home.
We've been sending teams of two to four people per period, depending on what else is going on during the day and how many periods of scripture class there are. In the schools here, high schools are students from grades 7 to 12. However, some of the older kids are taking exams right now, so we've mostly been in 7th to 9th grade classes. The schedule is on a two-week rotation, with only two periods of scripture during each two week period. Each day there are different amounts of scripture classes, some days its only two, other days there are six. All in all, Chris estimates that he teaches about 600 kids, so this means there is a lot of different kids we will have the opportunity to interact with.
In addition to sharing bible passages, in the past couple days at the school, we've spent class time introducing who we are, answering questions, and sharing testimonies. In some classes we've also had time to do a devotional lesson such as "Who is driving the bus in your life" or one of the interactive message-driven activities we learned from Steve Gonzoles. The class is mostly taught topically, so soon we will be moving into sharing topical lessons to the classes.
The students are very excited to meet us and think our "accents" are really funny, and enjoy asking us to say words like "aluminum" in our american accents. They also are amused how we say trunk instead of boot for the compartment of the car where you stow your luggage. They had a lot of questions about america, ranging from whether we lived in "ghettos" to whether everything they saw on the OC about America is real.
Our team is already starting to build relationships with individual kids. One girl asked Diana after class how she had started her relationship with God. Another girl approached me (Jessica) in the hallway to say that she really appreciated how vulnerable we'd been in sharing about ourselves the day before. These kids are listening to what we have to say, and the more we put ourselves out there where we can interact with them, the more we can build relationships and have opportunities to individually impact their eternities.
Many of the kids taking scripture class are only doing so because their parents thought it would be a good idea, though others already have a relationship with Jesus, and are involved in youth groups at their home churches or the christian club at school.
God has also been opening up other doors into other schools as well, One of those doors is a 90 minute assembly next week, and if they are impressed with that, that could potentially open further doors at that school to speak in classes.
We've been sending teams of two to four people per period, depending on what else is going on during the day and how many periods of scripture class there are. In the schools here, high schools are students from grades 7 to 12. However, some of the older kids are taking exams right now, so we've mostly been in 7th to 9th grade classes. The schedule is on a two-week rotation, with only two periods of scripture during each two week period. Each day there are different amounts of scripture classes, some days its only two, other days there are six. All in all, Chris estimates that he teaches about 600 kids, so this means there is a lot of different kids we will have the opportunity to interact with.
In addition to sharing bible passages, in the past couple days at the school, we've spent class time introducing who we are, answering questions, and sharing testimonies. In some classes we've also had time to do a devotional lesson such as "Who is driving the bus in your life" or one of the interactive message-driven activities we learned from Steve Gonzoles. The class is mostly taught topically, so soon we will be moving into sharing topical lessons to the classes.
The students are very excited to meet us and think our "accents" are really funny, and enjoy asking us to say words like "aluminum" in our american accents. They also are amused how we say trunk instead of boot for the compartment of the car where you stow your luggage. They had a lot of questions about america, ranging from whether we lived in "ghettos" to whether everything they saw on the OC about America is real.
Our team is already starting to build relationships with individual kids. One girl asked Diana after class how she had started her relationship with God. Another girl approached me (Jessica) in the hallway to say that she really appreciated how vulnerable we'd been in sharing about ourselves the day before. These kids are listening to what we have to say, and the more we put ourselves out there where we can interact with them, the more we can build relationships and have opportunities to individually impact their eternities.
Many of the kids taking scripture class are only doing so because their parents thought it would be a good idea, though others already have a relationship with Jesus, and are involved in youth groups at their home churches or the christian club at school.
God has also been opening up other doors into other schools as well, One of those doors is a 90 minute assembly next week, and if they are impressed with that, that could potentially open further doors at that school to speak in classes.
