The end of the school year must be stressful for kids. They have their final exams and the stretch to get the best grades they can, they perform their school plays that they’ve been preparing all year long, they have their recitals for piano or violin or guitar, and of course, they bring their report cards home to Mom and Dad.
That’s a lot of big things happening all at once in May and June. But if you’ve been working hard all year then there is certainly a sense of satisfaction in reaping the fruit of all that labor.
The end of the school year is big in another way, too. Because of all those performances and special activities, there are lots of opportunities to be with people, even opportunities to share the gospel.
Lego Project
In May a woman from our church organized a Lego project at Narnia. A huge traveling Lego set is brought to the school and parents are invited to come and build with their kids. During the week the teachers use the time with the kids to talk about themes from Scripture and the whole thing ends with a program where we talk about the week. On this occasion I was invited to give a short presentation of the gospel.
Musicals
The biggest event for us are the English language musicals that the kids from Narnia perform at the end of the year. The kids practice all year and then perform for the other kids at school and then on Sunday for our congregation. The older kids even give one or two performances on a “tour” of Slovakia.
The Sunday morning performances are an important opportunity for the families to get to know our congregation. For many of them, this is the only time all year they will be in a church. Since our pastor also shares a short presentation of the gospel, it may also be a rare opportunity for them to hear of Christ’s sacrifice and love.
After the Sunday performance and the services, we have a pot luck where the families from the church can mingle with families from the school. For our family, this has been a good way to build new relationships. Of course it helps that Jana is the director of the musicals.
Family Retreat
After the performance of the musicals on Sunday we also invite the families to join us on our church’s family retreat. Our retreat is usually the last weekend before the end of the school year. This year, two families from the school joined us and once again we had the chance to build deeper relationships and share the message of Christ’s love.
Please pray that God would use all these opportunities (and others) to plant seeds in these people’s hearts.
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