Rats and other things in our Sunday school

Rats of course stands for Radically Altered through Salvation - and they were my Sunday school class. [I say were because the Lord called 6 new teachers - setting me free to start other children's ministries]. Here is a picture of them at my house. None of them can swim - but they loved the water.

They were made up of 1 white and 14 coloured and black children - who speak mainly Afrikaans and just could not get on with the rest of the group s0 I took on the challenge and formed a separate class with them. We ran for 3 years. Two moved up to Youth this year, and two others were able to integrate into the main class - that is victory for His Kingdom.

Here is teacher Shandre with one of the Rats and a Sunday school child, these kids are so hungry for love and hugs although its hard to work with them because they are very unstable and can lash out at the drop of a hat. I don't think kids are born dysfunctional and anti-social - I think family life makes most of them that way and those adults are going to stand in judgement one day. So when we are teaching children we need to take time to reach into the family homes as well.

Home visitations is considered old fashioned - most people just sms or email their children on birthdays, but what most curriculum that we get from overseas and what our big mega churches in the rich areas that offer training forget, is that like it or not - this is Africa and only a very small portion of black disadvantaged children have cell phones, even less have computers and the majority have no clue what Internet is about.


Visiting in homes can mean your car will get stolen, you may even get attacked by abusive parents - its a whole new ball game here. So to get to know the kids better I started taking them on outings. The first time they were really scared - being taken so far from their 'home ground' we only travelled about 6 kilometres away but that was enough for them.

Took them to the museum - they did not know what was going on - it took some time to persuade them that stuffed animals are in fact dead - once they clicked - oh boy. I had my hands full teaching them 'we don't touch, sit on or move the exhibits'.

Of course this takes money, money we do not have in our church, but planting life skills and experiences into these children's lives and trying to use the Love of Jesus to turnaround some of the damage done in their young lives makes it worthwhile in the end.