Happy Birthday, Jesus

Written by Caroline Meek

On Sunday, December 12, the children’s church group at Mission Adelante had a birthday party celebrating Jesus’ birth. On that fun-filled night, the kids learned that reading the Bible and learning about Jesus can be fun and exciting. They discovered the importance of giving, and grasped the idea that Christmas is not all about presents, cookies, and snow. They played relay races and learned the real story of the Candy Cane and how it represents Jesus’ suffering and purity.

They played games such as the snowman relay race where they worked as teams to decorate a team member as a snowman before time ran out. This was challenging because they all had to cooperate and the toilet paper kept breaking! Another game required them to patiently balance 2-4 peppermints on a small plastic spoon while walking to the other side of the room and back.

When game time was over, the kids got to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and celebrate with a piece of birthday cake. The kids thought it was great and they had lots of fun honoring Jesus on his birthday and learning more about Him.

In other news:

• Thanks, Westside Family Church, for inviting our community kids to join your choir for the "Rock the World" services, and for the wonderful hospitality you showed to our group while there.

Prayer needs:

• Pray for immigrant families that are separated from one another, which is especially difficult during the holidays.
• Pray for God to provide abundant funding for Mission Adelante's ministry and for staff salaries through year-end gifts. About 25% of our annual budget is typically funded by year-end contributions.
• Pray for God to provide more volunteers for all of our outreach programs, but particularly for Latino and Bhutanese kids ministries.
• Pray for our Teens Adelante volunteers to continue to embrace a vision for investing their lives in individual Latino teens.
• Pray for security, productivity, and strengthening of relationships during Jarrett's trip to Qba during the first half of January.

Upcoming dates:

• Mission Adelante will be closed Friday December 24 through Saturday, January 1.
• Volunteer Orientation & Training: Saturday, January 15, 9:00-12:30 at Mission Adelante