Trans-European Division of Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Children s Ministries

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1 Trans-European Division of Seventh-Day Adventist Church Children s Ministries S U M M E R Hi everyone, On internet I found this little poem. It didn t say who had written it but I thought it really reminded me of summer. The summer sun in the sky, Shining, shining up so high Makes it warm for outside fun. To play at the park and run, To swim and hike and fish, And to go on a picnic if you wish. I loved this little poem because it reminded me of how much fun I used to have as a child. Unfortunately these days kids are indoors so much because of internet, ipads, iphones, or i anything else I might have forgotten. The sun is important and my prayer is that our kids will enjoy the rays of the sun and let their bodies take in the sunshine. It makes you happy and is actually good for you. Let s encourage parents and those who work with kids to get the kids outdoors and enjoying what God has given us. Happy summer and God s blessings to you as you too enjoy the summer wherever you are. Clair

2 Family is special Sutton Church in Ashfield The theme was for this Messy Church: Family is Special - story of Jesus family coming through Abraham and Sarah This is a ministry to which those who no longer attend church are willing to attend as they want to bring their child/children. This was the highlight of our first event as a mum, unexpectedly the dad too, came with their child. Some of the children who came have attended other events at Sutton so it was thrilling to see them come again. However 4 children were new to us and all say they would come back next month. - Heather Haworth

3 Tower OF BABEL Kaunas Messy Church, Lithuania Our theme was Tower of Babel for this Messy Church event. This time we had 6 tables: 1) Unexpected tower an experiment was done with dry yeast, dish soap, hydrogen peroxide, food colouring water. Everything was mixed and as a result was out of the bottle came an interesting tower. 2) Mysterious tower from clay children made bricks and build their own tower. 3) Happy tower was made from tubes from paper towels, painted with brown colour and a Bible verse glued to it. 4) Sweet tower kids build their towers from apples, marshmallows, corn glued with sweet peanut butter. 5) Notice board was made from coloured sticks and decorated with animal and flower shapes. Inside sticky paper was put. 6) Smart tower from 20 paper cups and 2 sheets of paper families had to build the highest tower. For food we ve planned to make strawberry banana ice cream, but the weather became cold and we change our menu to corn - cottage cheese pie. So our frozen strawberries and bananas were left in the freezer for the next meeting. -Vilma Vanagiene

4 Teen Camp In The Netherlands People couldn t stop laughing as they passed our campsite because a group of about 50 teens were having a water balloon fight together with the leaders. The evening before the camp theme Unlimited was launched. All the ingredients for a wonderful Teen Camp were there. The sun shone the whole weekend, the programme was very varied and the food was delicious. The speakers, John and Clair Sanches, were in top form. In addition, both the teens and the leadership were really looking forward to the camp. The Sabbath morning was very special. The teens went around in groups visiting the different prayer stations. They rewrote the Lord s Prayer in teen language and discovered that God loves them unconditionally. It was wonderful to see the moment when the teens threw their paper with their temptation written on it in the fire. A symbolic gesture. On Sunday the teens went to the Efteling. A park with the fairy tale theme.

5 The Prodigal SON Liepaja Church, Latvia Messy Church in May was the end of the first season in our church. For this time we had guests, six missionaries from The World Race, girls from America. They have seen for the first time what Messy Church means. They helped to set up everything, and even gave a helpful hand for the workshops. In May we had another group from the orphanage coming. This time we all had our emotions high, because it was the last service during the first season, but it was full of love and joy. We talked about the Prodigal son and his father s love to him. We presented this as a story about us and God, who loves as so much. All workshops reflected this story: there was a chance to draw farm life, talk about special food for celebrations, think about what can make God cry, design party balloons, do some origami, decorate pencils and write letters to someone with them. After musical performances, orchestra and the drama sketch, we listened to the message and then said Thank You to everyone. We got Bibles for kids our Bible Society gave them as donation for teachers we got some sweets, nobody was forgotten. This Messy Church year demonstrated us how many kids long for a safe place without competition. We have seen families which are broken, we saw how the teacher from the orphanage is taking care of her group, and how all of them long for love. This year showed me my church member s strengths and weaknesses, as well as mine. I really appreciate the Pathfinder club, as they are serving kids outside of the church, and how those kids now are part of the Messy church team. Now it is time for a short break, then we start new planning and say lots of prayers for our Messy Church team and attenders. Līvija Baltrušaite

6 SLATINAFEST International Children s Festival of Spiritual Music in Croatia The SlatinaFest was first held fifteen years ago, in the small town of Slatina, in Croatia. Since then it has been well received both by children and by adults, it soon outgrew into an international event, and SlatinaFest became a whole weekend event for the kids. This year the festival took place from 25 April to 27 April. It started with a cake and candies for the celebration of it's small jubilee: fifteen years. The kids enjoyed the whole weekend and it s rich programme in the town of Slatina. This year the guest speakers were Clair and John Sanches from England. From Friday to Sunday, they conveyed a spiritual message in a way that is most appropriate for the children. This year, our children excelled themselves not only through playing music and singing, but also through composing. We had the honour to organize the composing workshop within The SlatinaFest, led by esteemed professor of music, Davor Bobić. He confirmed seventeen small composers who wrote their tunes on a default text. The most successful songs were presented during the SlatinaFest. Friday night the children composers performed rehearsed songs everyone on his own instrument and their performance was the introduction for the weekend.

7 SLATINAFEST Saturday morning a large number of children from Croatia and surrounding countries gathered to attend the main programme of SlatinaFest. Saturday afternoon the children performed by singing praises to God. Listening to them was a great delight to the audience. After dinner children enjoyed taking part of the different games organised for them. Sunday morning all participants visited the famous local picnic site Jankovac. One important part of the SlatinaFest is collecting contributions to a charity. This year the voluntary contributions were directed to the charity project: Be great, help the little ones, which helps children who live in homes without parental care in the Croatian villages Ladimirevci and Lekenik. We strongly believe that these kind of events and projects are developing creative skills among our children, and their compassion toward less fortunate children. Above all SlatinaFest is directing the little ones to our God, the true source of joy, creativity and all blessings. - Tunde Torma Calendar: Children s Sabbath 26 July

8 Children Camp in Finland Our campsite turned into an Indian village from 16to 20 June. Around 70 children gathered together with over 40 campleaders to live in an Indian village. Clair Sanches-Schutte was our invited guest at the camp. During the camp, we saw every day the follow-up drama, where Indians found out who really God is He s our Healer and Saviour. Clair really inspired the kids! The kids loved to read the Bible every day. Clair taught the children to do it very creatively, and every time they just saw Bibles, they were delighted! Children got lots of nice gifts from Clair during the week which will remind them later how God really loves them all, and especially that how each one of them can tell the others about Jesus. No one is too young for that special mission. In the afternoon we had different kind of activities: Fishing (some kids cought so big pikes almost as they were), they made bows and willow whistles, Indian costumes and other accessories, and at the end of week it was so nice to see how many little Indians we had there all around. At the farewell the whole camp had their Indian costumes on that was atmospheric! Even though the camp week was the coldest Summer week ever in Finland with freezing North wind, little bit of icey snowflakes and rain, that didn t matter at all. The spiritual atmosphere and being around with each other was something so great that we didn t notice the cold weather at all. Thank God for His kindness and care! We felt like this was the best camp ever. Eliisa Saarinen Maribor Messy Church June 2014 This session is the second of three on the theme of women who lived their lives for God. The aim of this Messy Church has been to demonstrate the importance of prayer and obedience. We also started to work intensively on our website for Maribor Messy Church.

9 Festival For Children and teenagers This was the 6th year in succession when children from different towns in Latvia could gather together to spend time in celebrating the Festival for Children and Teenagers Rainbow 6. This year the festival was organized in two regional centres. Both festivals were well attended and there were about 200 children registered. Some churches brought groups of children from non-adventist families to the festival. This year the theme of the festival was The Fruit of the Spirit in my Life. The festival was opened by two little crows Crooh and Crah. The children knew them already from the Latvian Adventist periodical Adventes Vestis (The Advent Messages) and from the Internet radio program for children Ceribas balss (The Voice of Hope). The children were divided into 5 groups and they could learn more about the fruit of the Spirit in different stations, such as Peace, Joy, Patience, Faithfulness, and Self-control. In the stations they had to perform tasks to get to know the fruit of the Spirit better. After activities in the stations all participants had an afternoon tea which was followed by a program of performances together with the little crows. The children from different churches had showed their short plays: about the unkind owl who finally learned to be kind, about the little bug who knew the true value of God s gifts, and about the butterfly who taught us about true friendship. During the festival we could see an exposition of the creative work of our children drawings and lyrics about the fruit of the Spirit 126 performances in total. All authors received a gift pen with the Bible text about the fruit of the Spirit. Each participant of the festival received a button of the festival. We are thankful to all who served voluntarily and with all their hearts. But the greatest thanks goes to God who gave us ideas and His blessing for everything we have done. Marite Lipska (Leader of Children s Department of Latvian Conference)

10 Children s Ministries This newsletter is addressed to the Children s Ministry Directors of the Unions in The Trans-European Division. Others who would like to be on the mailing list can send their address to zkovacs-biro@ted-adventist.org in order to be added to it. Children s Ministries Department Trans-European Division of Seventh-day Adventists 119 St Peter s Street, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 3EY England csanches-schutte@ted-adventist.org zkovacs-biro@ted-adventist.org Have a wonderful Summer Please send stories and ideas you want to share to To subscribe or unsubscribe please reply to this . zkovacs-biro@ted-adventist.org For Union Training of Coaches and Presenters contact: csanches-schutte@tedadventist.org The Funny Side of Parenting A pastor asked a little boy if he said his prayers every night. 'Yes, sir,' the boy replied. 'And, do you always say them in the morning, too?' the pastor asked. 'No sir,' the boy replied. 'I m not scared in the daytime.'