3rd Grade Prayers

I sat in on the 3rd graders prayer time and was thoroughly blessed by how heartfelt their prayers were. The 3rd graders along with Mrs. Chelsea were practicing upward, inward, and outward prayer. Upward is to praise God, inward is recognizing and asking God to forgive you for a sin, and outward is prayer to God for something going on in life that you need His guidance and help with. I could not help but smile as the children began to pray. Each child had a prayer cue card to use if they were stuck and could not think of anything. They could look at the cue card and be prompted. When Mrs. Chelsea announced that next they would be taking time to pray, Josh immediately said that he did not want to pray, he said that usually they don’t have to if they don’t want to. You see Mrs. Chelsea is not the regular 3rd grade teacher, and so she kindly asked Josh if tonight he would pray, since she was a visiting teacher. I tell you all this because you should have seen how submissive he was after Mrs. Chelsea said that to him, he did not even say anything else just sat there quietly and when it was his turn sure enough he opened up his mouth and prayed.

The upward prayer started with Madison, she and she praised God because he is able to protect her and is wise, Teagan praised God for talking and listening to her, Josh praised God because he is the creator, and both GG and Macy praised God because he is wise and strong.

Following the upward prayer was inward prayer. Madison asked that God would forgive her for being mean to friends, Teagan asked for forgiveness for being selfish and sometimes forgetting about Him, Josh asked that God would forgive him for yelling at his dad, Macey asked that she would be forgiven for not listening to her mother the 1st time, and GG asked God to forgive her for not obeying.

The last was outward prayer. Madison prayed for her sister who was graduating from High School, Teagan asked that God would protect her family, and Macey asked that God would let her grandpa have a safe trip back to Missouri. I think that I will often think of the way these children prayed and hope that I can do the same.

2nd Graders learn GOD MADE THEM SPECIAL!

If you have never read the book You Are Special by Max Lucado, then you need to stop what you are doing and go find the book and read it! Mrs. Sheri, who is the 2nd grade classroom leader, thought reading the book to the 2nd grade classroom would be a good idea, and it was!

This book by Max Lucado portrays such a lovely illustration of the way God thinks about each one of us. I entered the class at the very end of their discussion time, after the and from what I could see the kids really loved what they had just read because they were answering every one of Mrs. Sheri’s questions correctly!
From what I have learned, children at this age are very vulnerable when it comes to how another person thinks of them. In the book there are little “Wemmicks;” they are little wooden figures who do the exact same thing day in and day out. They place gray stickers on the ugly Wemmicks and gold stars on the pretty Wemmicks. Sadly, one character in particular, Punchinello, only gets gray dots. He meets a unique Wemmick named Lucia, who does not have any dots because she does not care what anyone, but Eli thinks. So, the stickers whether gold or gray never stick! Soon Punchinello decides to visit this Eli character, and when he does Eli tells him how special he is and it does not matter what anyone else thinks.

I spoke with Mrs. Sheri and she felt as though the kids really understood; they “got it!” One child in particular (Serenity) raised her hand and stated that one thing she learned is that “God does not make mistakes”. He made each of them special. My heart has just been touched over and over again hearing these children express what they think God thinks of them.

Pre/K Interview- Zahria

The pre-k students had just finished dinner and were in the gym playing as I was making my way out of the 1st grade room. I had the idea to do a “mini interview” with one of the pre-k kids and went over to Mrs. Bert and Mrs. Jeanine and asked if it would be alright if I pulled one of the kids away to ask a few questions.

I looked around the gym and saw a little girl with dark hair, with a few fluffy pony tails placed around her head. Her little pony tails were just bopping all around as she was jumping up to throw a ball up the wall as high as she could. She caught my eye so I walked over to her and asked her if she would like to come with me to talk for a little while, she looked at me and said “yes!” Her eyes were so big I knew she was interested.

We sat down in one corner of the gym and began to talk, the first question I asked her was, “How long have you been coming to City Impact?” She told me, “Just when my Birthday turns to 5” From that moment on I knew our conversation would be fun! I went on to ask Zahria what her favorite thing about coming to City Impact was and she told me that she likes to learn about God. “Liking to learn about God” seems to be a common response throughout CI when I ask any child what their favorite thing is about Bible Club. Zahria also told me she likes to dance “its really fun”. She usually dances all over the place at worship and loves to be called on to come up front and join the teen worship leaders.

After hearing that a favorite thing of Zahria’s was to learn about God, I asked her what she had leaned in her Bible lesson? She told me she had learned that God can do anything. I said to her “If God can do anything, then what kinds of things can he do?” She looked at me and said “You got a problem, He can come and make it work.”

I was having so much fun talking with Zahria and did not even realize the pondering look on her face. Then out of no where, she looked around and then said to me with the straightest and most curious face I have ever seen “I been thinking, when we die is there going to be another life?” My heart was softened one notch more and I was so excited to tell her that “Yes! We will have another life with God!” Zahria just could not believe it, she was so excited and just kept saying “yeah!, yeah!” I could tell the knobs were turning in her little head. What privilege to share with one of God’s precious children that there actually is something to look forward to when we die.

--Evian, Communication Coordinator

Zodell's new shirts

Last week at Bible Club I had the opportunity to witness a very precious moment. It was the 2nd graders from Mrs. Sheri’s classroom who had the privilege to shop at the GFG store, and one 2nd grader in particular was surprisingly not too excited about this. The 2nd grader I am speaking of is Zodell, and what a lively young man he is!

According to Ms. Lindsay, Zodell’s 2nd grade small group leader, he was having trouble finding something he could buy from the GFG store. Finally after some searching through the store with Ms. Lindsay they came upon the clothes section. Zodell found two shirts and was so excited he had to try them on right then and there. I was drawn to the clothes section because of all the excitement. I heard laughter and then saw smiling faces, and Zodell basically cheering because he was so excited about his new shirts.

Now, when I use the word excited, it does not really do justice to the way Zodell really felt and the way he was acting! He was not afraid to express his excitement and told Ms. Lindsay that he was so happy he wanted to cry, and he was going to “rock” the two shirts.

I was overcome with joy watching Zodell celebrate his new shirts, but the thing that struck me the most is when I heard Zodell say “ooooo this makes my heart feel warm”. When I asked Ms. Lindsay to tell me a bit about her experience shopping with Zodell she told me that she picks Zodell up for Bible Club every week and she thought getting those shirts really was special for him.

Transformations in Reroute

My first night at Bible Club I had the opportunity to sit in the re route room. When I first thought of re-route I thought it sounded like a place for all the “bad” kids to go, but to my sweet surprise I was wrong. I found that the re-route room is a place for students to take a breather, re group, set some goals and then have the opportunity to head back to class. Please don’t think that it is just a place to lounge around, reroute is very structured and Mr. John does a great job of keeping all of the kids in their proper places. When kids first arrive they are directed to sit in a chair and cool down for about 5-10 minutes; by cool down I mean sit quietly with hands folded and facing forward. After the 5-10 minutes, the kids do something called “processing” which is a time to talk about why they were sent to reroute and discuss some goals that can be reached.

Now I was not the only one in reroute that evening, sitting behind me in chairs doing their time of “cool down” sat Randa and Javaen. If my memory serves me well, I remember Randa and Javaen having a good ole time joking around and teasing each other while they were supposed to be “cooling down”. Like I said before, cooling down does not consist of talking to one another. They eventually, sat quietly and appeared ready to process. After a bit Javaen was called to the table to process with Mr. John. Trying to get Javaen to set goals for herself was like pulling teeth. Finally, with the help of Mr. John some goals were set and Javaen walked back to class, with a good attitude in fact! It was Randa’s turn to come to the table and to my surprise it was like Javaen was still sitting there! Randa and Mr. John decided on some goals and she returned to class. Both girls had been sent to reroute for disrespecting classmates/volunteers and not participating, and both girls set a goal of not being back in reroute anytime soon!

The following week, I popped into the 5 grade room to chat with the volunteers and classroom leader Mrs. Wanda about Randa & Javaen’s behavior. I spoke with Miss Joy, I asked her if there had been anything that had stuck out to her during their time together? She said, that they had a very good night and no one went to reroute! Next I decided to talk to Mrs. Wanda, she shared that over the past few weeks some of her 5th grader girls had been in reroute every Bible Club meeting! She was so pleased that no one had gone to reroute, and went on to tell me that she has noticed that they have been coming into class time with good attitudes and have been paying more attention to what they are saying! Something really exciting that happened was that Javaen took her goals very seriously, and complimented a girl in class that she formerly didn’t get along with. Javaen genuinely told this girl that she always looked very pretty in pictures. Then the two girls decided to be friends, after months of arguing! This was so encouraging for me to hear! Miss Wanda really feels like the girls are being impacted in a positive way by reroute.

After speaking with Mrs. Wanda I decided to follow up with Mr. John to gather his point of view. Mr. John was excited in telling me that the girls (Randa and Javaen) have been doing really well! They have been starting each Bible Club in reroute for about 15 minutes, not because they are in trouble but for the purpose of writing goals for the night. Mr. John reaffirmed my statement about how hard it was in the beginning to get the girls to set goals for themselves, and now they are doing it all on their own! Their goals have consisted of things like no crossing of the arms, no rolling of the eyes, and no talking back. Mr. John also made it a point to tell me that a goal they have set each time is choosing one classmate to compliment. He feels this has benefited some of the relationships between the 5th grade girls. I could hear the excitement in Mr. John’s voice as he told me about the girls, and everything he said was in line with what Mrs. Wanda had noticed. I am noticing true transformation in children and it is beautiful.