Day 11: A Gigantic Tornado of Events!

Hi! Michelle here and just telling you guys what’s happening on the 11^th day of CI.

We started off with the Youth to Youth event. First some introductions, then some games in the field.

Today, Sam talked about life, how it didn’t matter and how it wasn’t worth anything unless we lived it all for God. It was really motivating to be reminded that our time on earth was only a tiny speck of dust compared to our eternity in Heaven; that our days are numbered.

It was great bonding with some old friends and making new ones.  Being there was really energizing for me. I like how everyone got along so well and how the environment was just super friendly.

We had devotions right after that. We’re basically given a few questions that helped us think more deeply on how to strengthen our faith, then divide into groups to discuss them. This time we examined our desires. Were they Christ-centered? Were they pleasing to Him? It was so totally nerve-racking, but at the same time it was nice being given a challenge to be a better follower.

Now, seminar nights. Haha. To tell you guys the truth, I was so scared to teach the kids. As a CI kid, I really admired how my teachers just made learning Biblical principles during small group fun. Not just that, but the skits they put on were just… wow. Living up to those really really towering tall standards and expectations that those previous teachers set was not easy. The first lesson I taught seemed like an absolute disaster. I was so disappointed with myself I literally just couldn’t look at anyone for a while.

I guess through this experience I really came to understand learning from your mistakes. The next lessons got better and better though. I learned how to grab the kids’ attention and how to make the lesson “fun”. It really helped to have a team leader and a fellow assistant to help me grow and learn.

I’m not one to take constructive criticism lightly… ever. My insides flip out and I starting boiling. So, I guess even taking hints from my fellow team mates was a hidden lesson.

I really love being with the kids. Warming up to them is quite a challenge for me. I’m not usually the one to initiate conversations with people I’ve never met before, but after that it’s practically a slow steady rising friendship.

This week, there are only three kids in our team and they’re just amazing. They’re attentive and have such teachable hearts. After breaking the ice, I found that they were just full of enthusiasm and there is just not a dull moment on our team. The coordination between the teachers also seems really great, but I guess if you were to ask me what I could possibly want more than this wonderful, unreal team, I would probably say significance in the kids’ life. I really pray that what we teach them will help them in this journey to live to the glory of God.

Well, I guess that’s all I can say for now. This whole day was practically a really packed gigantic tornado of events; although quite exhausting, it was so fun. And even though I got “punished” for being late to devotions by just a few minutes, it was still a really awesome learning experience that I would absolutely not switch for anything else.

Michelle Widjanarko
Team Member

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Day 10: Seeing the Power of God

Hi, my name is Jeremia Pasaribu and I’m from Indonesia. CI has been a part of my life since I was 5 years old. I’ve always wanted to be a CI teacher because of the lasting impact that my CI teachers left for me.

I come from Indonesia, so I’m used to having “150 kids, 20 kids per team” kind of CI’s. So when we came to Singapore for the second week of CI, I was shocked when Victor said that most teams would only get 2 children. God really showed his power from day 1 of Singapore because after a short prayer with my team just a few hours before CI night started, we got news that our team got 5 kids!

Although our kids are very young, I love the energy that they bring. All of the our kids are under 7-years old and the youngest is 3 years old. Dorcus, my team leader and Tracey, my fellow assistant, are great people to work with. Their planning, energy and just overall love for the children is really awesome to have on a team.

On Wednesday, the CI team went to a day care. The planning and execution of all the songs, games and story was by the teachers and not the staff. Surprisingly, everything went super smooth. It was really touching for me when  left because so many of the kids there said things like, “I hope you guys come tomorrow”.

- Jeremia Pasaribu

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Day 9: From the Outside In

How can you start out with trying to explain an amazing trip with just words? Words can’t come close to explaining everything we/I have learnt. But the best place to start is the beginning of today’s entry: Day 9^th June 2015, Singapore, 9.

At 10AM this morning, we went to West Coast Park and played Ultimate Frisbee. We got to sweat it out & there was tons of running - it was a blast. The park had an amazing huge, futuristic playground.  A bunch of us teachers released our inner child and played on it.

For lunch, we had pattaya fried rice & tom yum.

After a fun morning, we went back to the hotel for my favourite time of the day: Devotion time! How it works

We all get together and our leaders ask us questions and we get into small groups & talk about these questions.

Today, we talked about a super simple but hard question. The thing with the study is that it’s not just a “read a bible verse and move on” type of thing; NO, it’s a study. You need to dig down deep in your soul and be perfectly honest with yourself and your friends.

Today, one of the questions asked was “Are you able to surrender your family, friends, dreams and even your own life to follow and live for Christ? I had never thought of that before.

It’s easy to say “yes” right away, because we know we should be able to say “yes”. But are we willing to say “yes” honestly? It was a mind-boggling question.

After searching our hearts deeply, we were able to say “yes”. It’s so encouraging to have everyone be perfectly honest with each other.

After our devotion groups, we all get back into a big group again. Every team writes down a question and then our leader reads them and we all discuss them. The leader doesn’t answer them, but opens it up for others to answer. Sometimes, the most simple questions can be the most convicting to your heart. But to hear everyone’s opinion and how they explain things is just intriguing.

After devotions, we get our lesson for CI all planned and done. Everyone went into their groups. After being done with everything, we had rest time J

Time flies by like the sun rises in the morning. Before I knew it, it was time to go to CI and dinner! We all walked as a group to the building where we we are having CI. After preparing the crafts for tonight, we ate a delicious dinner.

Then that time of the night came - the kids started to arrive! In my class, we have 5 children, 2 assistants and a leader. The first night of CI in Singapore, all of our kids were super shy and hardly talked at all. But tonight is a different story. They all were talking! We as teachers and assistants were super excited! One of my kids is super shy. He was crying when he first got to class, but by the time all the other kids left to paly a game, he talked to m!  I was so excited and blessed by that - even though it was only 3 words, he talked! (:

Then it was story time. Tonight we did a story of Hadassah who became Queen Esther. We were trying to get the point across of Authority – that God uses authority for good. I just happened to have played Esther. All the actors and actresses did a great job! They story of Esther really shows how she respected authority and how obedient she was to the Lord. Even though she was afraid to go to the king and ask for her life to be spared, she knew that God uses authority and how obedient she was to the Lord. Even though she was afraid to go the king and ask for her life to be spared, she knew that God uses authority for good. It was a great skit. Then it as time for small group - we took our kids back to our classroom and taught them about how we are orphans without Christ.

I think that the lesson probably touched me more than it touched the kids. For myself, it opened my eyes to show that without Christ, we are all orphans. God is so good. I personally was super excited about teaching tonight.

At the end, all the kids were happy and excited for tomorrow! When your students are happy, it makes you happy. We had our cool down and everyone shared bout their night. Overall, everyone else had a great night also and they were excited fortomorrow night.

One of the many things I have learned on this trip is perspective as a teacher. Just because you weren’t able to finish the whole lesson or something went wrong, it all turns out for the good. God uses it all for good. I’m thrilled to see what all God is going to do and everything else God is going to teach me.

With a willing heart and an open mind,

Olivia Stano

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Day 8: First day in sunny Singapore

Hello there!

My name is Evangelina Peh and I'm from Malaysia. This is my very first time teaching the Children’s Institute programme, and I’ve really learnt so much from it!

One highlight on Monday, 8^th June for me was the devotions & our devotion small groups. What we do is that our team staff would give us a few good but difficult questions for us to really think again about being true Christians.

One of the questions that really struck me was “Can Christians love the world and God at the same time”? I kind of knew the answer already (which is NO,  because you either love God 100% or love the world 100%).

But practically, for me, I realize that it’s a very very tough decision, because naturally we are born to love our sin, so it got me thinking hard if I am really a Christian or not, or do I really love God so much that I would give up even family. Yeap, so that’s just a sneak peak of our daily devotions.

Moving on, to our seminar nights! The first week in Kuala Lumpur, I was an assistant and I liked it that way just because I prefer to suggest ideas, rather than being a leader.

Unfortunately, for the 2^nd week of Singapore, I was placed as a leader along with only one assistant who is coming on this trip for the first time too. With both of us not being very experienced, to be honest, I was actually quite scared/worried.

But I guess both of us had to fast and pray, everybody! (Just kidding)

To my surprise, as the first & second night went on, everything went very well. We had good planning, smooth craft & games and only 3 older children & a 5-year-old. At first, we thought that they would be too-cool-for-school, but they turned out to be a very responsive and good team!

Because they were older, I decided to take my lesson to whole new deeper level. I tried to question them about them being a Christian in a simpler way. So, my only prayer is that God will open up their hearts to really understanding the Gospel and the purpose of being rooted in Christ because we are Christians.  :)

Signing off by God’s grace,
Evangelina Peh

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Day 7: Completed the KL Week! On to Singapore

Time flies when you're having fun serving Jesus!

We have completed a week of ministry in K.L. Malaysia and God has brought us safely to Singapore! We are thankful God created rest to which the team took advantage of on the bus ride from Malaysia to Singapore.

We enjoyed dinner at a Hawker Centre reminiscing fun memories from our week in K.L. Malaysia. I really enjoyed chatting with Martha over a bowl of noodles about how I've seen God work here in SEA over the past six years! Martha and I first met here as fellow CI teacher in 2010.

Our rest day ended with a "Pajama Party!" Guys and girls separated for sharing what we like to call, "pain and gain". A time of fellowship but also a time to be open, honest, and vulnerable with the team about our personal character weaknesses. Our culture as a CI team is to create environments for tough and sometimes uncomfortable topics to be shared and discussed for the purpose of personal evaluation and the building up of the Body of Christ. "For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." James 1:23-24 Kind character critiques and praise from others allows us to see more of who we really are and areas we need to seek Christ to conform to His image.

Please pray for us as we start another week of CI in Singapore. We are all physically tired but encouraged knowing our work has not been in vain. May Jesus Christ use us as willing vessels moldable and ready to do His will.

Elizabeth Shoemaker
Staff Member

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Day 6: The Poor Can be Counted Rich!

Saturday started with sleepy faces, but as children started to file in, their happy faces and energy go us all hyped, getting us ready to kick start the day.

We started with the lesson “The Poor Can be Counted Rich”. We taught the children that sharing and being generous does not make you poor, but instead God says that you are rich in Him through what you’ve done.

In the first large group of the day, we reviewed songs and scripture memory and listen to the story of a girl who had a serious disease of the Gimme Hands *gasp*. In Small Group 2, we learned about hospitality. Two beggars were hungry but the first beggar had 3 apples while the second beggar had 2. Even though the first beggar was starving, he still chose to show hospitality and share his third apple with his friend.

The next large group got us laughing at the story of a selfish rich man and his dog Pooch and Lazarus. The rich man unmercifully turned Lazarus away when he came to beg for food and set his dog on him. In the end, the rich man was sent to hell - he got what he deserved, while Lazarus went to heaven. Right before lunch, we had another small group where there was a small skit about two birds who were imprisoned but set “free” and didn't know it.

Parent presentation was a blast and the children were energetic and excited. What was interesting was that several student assistants were picked for the last large group skit, and I felt they did an amazing job acting! They acted in the skit called "The Race of Life" where no one knew when the end of the race was, and you had to persevere and not be distracted by the things of the world. Sadly, our time together at the KL Children’s Institute came to an end and we bid all the children goodbye.

Our last day in Kuala Lumpur ended with a really delicious dinner was provided by various ATI Families and we ended the day grabbing coffee at a nearby cafe and prepared for our travel to Singapore.

Deborah Leong

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Day 5: Exploring KL's sugar, corn and beans

To start Friday off the group of 30 left at 11am, walking to our first adventure on the train. This was a fun trip to the Twin Towers where we enjoyed lunch and a crazy desert called cendol. Cendol is shaved ice, sugar, corn, beans and durian syrup. 

My favourite time was when we broke up into small groups and answer questions that the staff made for us. This was such a cool time to get to know our team members and to see how we all want God at the center of our lives. 

We then took a train to our next destination, Central Market. It is a large building filled with vendors and beautiful items! There was also a very unique spot with a pool of fish, which I of course, needed to explore and see what it was. The group of girls and I found out that it was a pool to put your feet in and let the fish eat your dead skin. Next thing I know, we are sticking our feet into this pool and fish are jumping at us to eat our feet. Best fun ever!

With beautiful clean feet we move to China town for a crazy fun experience of moving up and down the streets lined with vendors.

We were all so thankful that it did not rain because it had rained almost every day this week.

To end this amazing day we enjoyed fruits: mangosteens, rambutan and lychee!

Psalm 118:1 Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; his love endures forever"

- Adlai Welfel

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