This post is about 7 months behind, but I wanted to make sure and share it for the benefit of those that read our blog but are not on Facebook. Our involvement minister, Mark Yeakley, took photos and wrote the following description of this event: “The Northside Church of Christ’s children’s classes launched a giving program on Nov. 22, 2009, to raise money to help poor children in Venezuela. The money will be sent to the church’s missionary, Jonathan Hanegan, to buy Bibles and class material for a small congregation in a fishing village a few hours from Caracas. Norma Banning is the Children’s Education coordinator, Samantha Corcoran taught the special class, and Josh & Julie Marcum, missionaries from Bolivia, were able to attend the launch of the giving campaign.”
This special class was focused on the geography and culture of Caracas, Venezuela. I wanted to kids to be able to see how far away Venezuela is from Kansas, see photos of the people that Jonathan served, and taste some of the food that they eat there.
The lesson started with a short video clip from the Disney movie UP!, where the two kids talk about visiting “Paradise Falls” (which is Angel Falls in Venezuela). The kids recognized this clip so I used it to introduce where we were heading on our map. I used Google Earth and started the map in Kansas, right over our church building, and then flew south down to South America to Caracas. Once we “arrived” in Caracas, preachers Steve Tandy & Mark Yeakley talked to the kids about their first-hand experience in Caracas from when they went to visit Jonathan earlier in the year. They had some great stories to tell the class about the mountains, the beach, the people, and what worship and bible class are like for kids their age in Caracas.
We then traveled from Caracas to Cocoli, which is difficult to find on a map. Jonathan had given us the distance from Caracas to the fishing village, so I had the kids help me use the ruler tool in Google Earth to measure the distance to find the fishing village.
I had made one of my favorite latin dishes, ceviche, for the kids to try. Jonathan said that this is a very common dish and would be perfect to introduce the kids to fishing village food. After reviewing our food tasting etiquette, the kids each enjoyed a small helping of ceviche with chips. Most liked it, but it wasn’t as successful as our lentil stew or bread and cheese classroom taste tests.
In a way that on the Holy Spirit could do, we had an unexpected visit from missionaries Josh & Julie Marcum from Bolivia. For the last part of our class they were so gracious and taught the kids a song in Spanish, showed them Bolivian money and then prayed with kids in both Spanish and English. I was so thankful that they were there–their example and teaching really made the lesson come alive and real to the kids!
We finished by showing a video Jonathan had made called Campaign for the Children of Cocoli. This introduced the service project: collecting spare change to provide Bibles and other supplies for the children in Cocoli. They kids were really excited to help and since this time have been faithfully bringing their spare change each week to their Bible classes.
