April 30 is Children’s Day in Mexico. The kids have a party in school. For church yesterday we had a shortened, modified service from 10-11:30, then opened up the church, inviting kids from the neighborhood to participate in a fun time of puppets and singing with the church.
During the normal service, I preached a kids sermon, dressed in my fishing vest, with fishing rod, and talked from James 1, about how we are tempted when we are drawn to sin by the sinful desires within us and…pow!…we grab the bait and are hooked by sin. The kids seemed to enjoy it.
Then after a brief break we did singing upstairs and puppets downstairs, alternating the groups, because of space limitations. We probably had about 80 kids plus another 40+ adults, the great majority un-churched people from the neighborhood. Mayra wrote and did the puppet program, illustrating it also. It was called “The Secret of the Castle,” and used the CEF gospel colores in a creative way to tell as story.
Many children raised their hand in response to the invitation at the end of the drama, and many parents did too. Pictures forthcoming.