Sarah Rowley

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J Life in Saint Pete is beginning to get underway. Last week our entire team was briefly reunited and we were able to spend our days together well. The seven of us headed outside of the city and spent 24 hours in prayer. We had time to pray separately, in small groups, and corporately. God not only met us there but He blessed us as well. In my own personal time I was convicted of not spending enough time alone with the Lord just listening to Him and being with Him. It was a good reminder and I am definitely working on changing things in that area. Our time together and with the Lord went by quickly and “ministry” was ready to start up again.
Upon my return to the city I met with Natasha for the first time. Natasha has been working with the Children at the Great Comission Church for the past three years. We were able to discuss what has been done in the past, what we would like to see happen this years, and what our vision is for the future years. I was amazed at how complimentary our thoughts were. Natasha and I are both excited about working together.
As we look ahead at the coming year it is our desire to split children’s church into school age kids and preschool age. I will be working with the preschool age systematically going through the Bible, writing my own curriculum. With the older kids Natasha will be preparing a lesson for the younger children. Every six weeks she wants the older kids to teach the younger. So, for example, their first lesson to the little kids will be on “The Call of Abraham.” They will learn about the life of Abraham how and why God called him. Then they will create their own lesson. It should be interesting. We were able to go through the entire school year and plan what lessons we will teach when and when we will have holidays and parties. We accomplished all of this in a couple of hours! Finally I have met a Russian who loves organization as much as I do!
In looking ahead to future years we talked about the need to train up leaders. There are already two other teachers we will be working with and rotating with. We would like to develop a greater teacher base. There are three women, whom Natasha knows, that are interested. We will prepare a weekend long seminar on teaching and working with children for September. We will then work with these women throughout the school year. Every week meeting an hour before church to go over questions and different aspects of children’s ministry. Our ultimate goal with this is to broaden our teacher base enough that we can pass off children’s church to new leaders and together Natasha and I can start an Awana’s club here next year! It is a big goal for our church but we know our God can do big things!
We will not officially start children’s church until the end of September but I wanted to get things going now. This last Sunday was my first week teaching the children. I had Zach a third grade American and Daniel and Mark 4 year old Russians. It was a small group and a challenging one. Zach doesn’t speak Russian and Daniel has verbal and behavioral problems. I taught my lesson speaking one sentence in Russian and the next in English as well as translating their answers to my questions so they could understand each other. While this unique method of teaching was going on 4 year old Daniel was running around the room out of control. It was trial by fire but I made it through and actually enjoyed myself. It felt good to get back in the classroom.
Life in Russia continues to progress. Two months ago I had dreams of everything coming together on September 1st. I now realize that just isn’t gong to happen and that is okay. I am learning to take my ministries one step at a time. This first step is children’s church and I will wait and see what God’s next step for me is

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