JOY!

Today's Sunday School lesson was the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, from Luke 18.  We had our usual students (Jackson, Deborah, Glory, Grace and Gladness) as well as two student helpers, Stephanie and Paulina.  We talked about the way the two men prayed and how we talk to God. 

When talking about prayer, we talked about JOY as a model for prayer;

J: Jesus

We talked about thanking God (Jesus) for all he has done for us and for our blessings. God is great!

O: Others

We talked about praying for others that we know are sick, sad, lonely, or in trouble.  We can also pray prayers of thanksgiving for our friends and family that have good things happening in their lives!

Y: Yourself

We talked about praying for the things we need in our lives. 

For each letter, I had glued a big, colorful letter to pieces of paper, and we wrote things we could pray about in each category on them.

After talking about prayer, we went around the table and all the children prayed.  I thought they would all be too shy to pray aloud, but everyone participated enthusiastically and we had a really nice prayer.

We finished off Bible class with words searches and coloring pages, which the kids always enjoy.

After Bible class, I went back to the library for a while to get a little work done.  Some of the boys (high school students) were hanging around, and they saw our JOY letters and decided they needed to be permanent decorations in the library, for some reason, and taped them up at the top of the blackboard.  I think they mostly just wanted to excuse to climb on chairs, but it does look nice up there. 

The internet was working pretty well (well, for here) today, so I let the boys watch the football (soccer) highlights of the week.  They're all big fans of not only Tanzanian teams, but also the English league and La Liga, the Spanish league.  They really miss not always being able to get the scores every week while they are at school, so this quickly drew quite a crowd!  Of course, little Jackson was right in the middle of it.  At six years old, he's already a huge soccer fan!