Pastoral Ministry With Children and Adolescents: Judy Lee Shares Reflection from Vacation Bible School/ Ft. Myers, FL.

While I do wish I had a youth worker so I could do more, working with these kids is exhilirating because they are learning the Gospel so well in word and deed, and because they are fun to be with. The eagerness and excitement they expressed at making a garden and planting vegetables was a joy to share.
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There are so many surprises: their joy at collecting sea shells and
seeing sea birds, and being in the water of any sort-but especially the Gulf.


Their awe at feeding baby goats at the petting zoo. Their abilities at sports and eagerness to learn about our loving God. Their recall of past Sunday lessons and their connecting to present lessons: Jakeriya is a small 9 year old girl- you have seen her dance at our Ordinations. When we were reflecting on Jesus’ love she said: I remember the time Jesus healed ten lepers, and no one wanted to go near them. But only one said thank you-we should say thank you to God for Jesus healing people like us. !!!!!!!

And TyJae,15, said in response to another group member who wanted to go to a skating rink for a group trip: no, I don’t think we should go just anywhere, we are learning about what God did to give us a beautiful world we should go find the world the way God created it, like we did at the beach, or at the zoo. We can deal with what people made anytime! !!!!!!!!!!!! Or Jolinda a strikingly beautiful ebony teenage girl who painted her new identity on her TeeShirt: ChurchGirl!!!!!


Or Marcella our Italian American 9 year old once so shy she couldn’t speak who was the only one who could define what chaos meant and then said-and God put order in all that mixed up jumble! She also painted a beautiful circle in gold on her Tee shirt and surrounded it with concentric broken circles and bright rays with a cross discecting the concentric circles. It was a piece of art worthy of any adult artist. She said “I don’t know what it means, but God is in the middle of it”.!!!!!!!!!! And, finally, Joelle our four year old simply makes everyone laugh and feel joy because she is so happy to be at Bible school and her zest for life is filled with grace. All of the kids love her, when she was a bit late to the first class her Mom apologized as she had to hurry from her morning job, but, she said, Joelle told her that God and her friends at church are waiting for her so they had to hurry! And to hear them sing fervently”Thank you God, Thank you God, we just want to thank you God” would make you weep-happy tears.


Thank you God…. Judy Lee+ ARCWP