February 2024
Bus Stop Cafe – worth stopping everything for!
We are completely amazed by the awesomeness of this ministry, so we’ve devoted the second half of this post as a special report.
New Play Group – Mainly Play
We are so grateful to Jo Hood and Sarah Matthews from Mainly Ministries for bringing us under their wing and mentoring us to launch our very own Mainly Play playgroup! We started in February and now have 5 families coming. I’m enjoying not having to ‘make up’ all the content. Instead, they provide it and it is wonderful. Praise God. Simone Bound our new facilitator is doing a great job, so it is all systems go!
Trees Growing Well!
The gum trees we’ve planted in 6 parks in Corio are generally doing very well. We have been hand-watering the weakest ones, but we still need to go around and replace the stakes and guards to keep them safe. We are taking a break from any new plantings for now and maintaining the ones already growing.
Outdoor Church in poor part of town
In early February we enjoyed hosting Pop Up Church in partnership with One In Christ, and christians from 5 different churches at Labuan Square Norlane. We had around 90 people there. We began with a rock band and then had the most beautiful time of worship and sharing the Word of God. We touched upon the Parable of the Good Samaritan, The 10 Virgins and a strong focus on the gospel and baptism. We had the baptism tank there. One person said: “We came when we heard the band and stayed for the whole thing. There’s so much love here!”
The Back End of Ministry!
Unpacking after Pop Up Church. Christine and I still do 90% of all the practical work involved in all the ministry work. This means we need to be careful not to take on any more work so we don’t become overloaded.
Work at the Church Building
We had a combined working bee to repaint the foyer of the church building. We’re hoping to repaint the entire building this year and improve the garden as well.
Bus Stop Cafe – Special Report
I have been involved in a lot of evangelistic activities in my time, but this is the best. I am going to explain why it is so good so other christians in other parts of the world might copy this amazingly simple and effective model.
Over 35 kids per day
We open up the church building at school pick-up time and the kids come in to get a free hot or iced chocolate if they complete the learning task. Around 35 kids per day are coming into the church building. This is amazing in our culture. As a rule, children don’t come to church. In fact, many churches in our area have less than 30 adults attending per week and they are all Christians. We are getting 35 kids PER DAY and they are non christians and they are doing the learning challenges!
What are the learning challenges?
We are adapting daily to the skills of the children. Christine and I have many years experience as English teachers creating materials to suit our learners. So every day we guide the children through the learning tasks we have prepared for them and then we reflect upon the effectiveness of the tasks and prepare new ones for the next day which will work better.
Literacy Development
As you can imagine, developing learning tasks for a random bunch of primary school children from many different races is a challenge. We have about 4 minutes to engage the children in a task which teaches them something about Christianity, check their work, give them a stamp and then give them a hot or iced chocolate before they race off to catch the bus. One surprising feature of this has been the low level of literacy displayed by the children. We must also overcome poor attitudes to learning and often very low levels of English.
Love the needy
Jesus calls us to love our neighbour as ourselves and particularly love the weaker ones in society. We believe evangelism is best done by loving the needy. So helping those who want to learn to read, achieve and enjoy learning about Jesus is the best way we can evangelise. We are demonstrating the love of Jesus in a cynical post Christian society where words are cheap and actions are everything. Offering hospitality is a terrific way to do this.
Creativity and fun
We only have about 5-10 minutes with the children so we need to be incredibly engaging. This means using a wide variety of challenges and rewards. The children now ask to spin the wheel. This means they want another challenge – in order to get a marshmallow or often just because it’s so much fun. They might have to run to a poster on Bible Facts and answer a question or do a maths sum or do push ups or read a poster on the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We are turning the room into a kids-focussed learning lab. And the kids and parents are loving it. The parents now say: “They’re not teaching RE anymore at school so we can come here for it and its fun, fast and we get a hot chocolate!”
Addicted to learning
We are beginning to see the brightest students asking for more challenges, electing to do the harder worksheets because they’re harder! This is a very special dynamic which I’ve seen before in my advanced English classes. The brain seems to like learning in certain circumstances and certain ways and seems to drive the learner itself, like an internal compulsion to learn more. We are thrilled to see signs of this among this ‘disadvantaged’ demographic and one of the challenges now is to make the content spiritually significant without driving them away. Watch this space!
What’s the cost?
Guests have the option of paying $0.50 for a drink so we are taking around $4 per day which helps to offset costs a little. Each day costs about $25 to host excluding the rent of the building. That is milk, chocolate, coffee, cups, lids, marshmallows, paper and toner.
I prefer to look at the value we are generating. Changed lives. Hope. Skills. Simple knowledge of Christianity. Joy. Laughter. We are currently teaching one of the Jesus Miracle Stories each week, but now we are heading towards Easter. I really must be going! Bless you and thank you for being part of this adventure!
You can get involved
Giving – You can support Little Miracles Community by donating!
Account Name: Little Miracles Community Inc.
BSB: 633 000
ACC: 205 402 357
Praying – If you’re not on our Prayer Warrior Team, drop me a line and join: angus@littlemiraclescommunity.com.au
Volunteering – Come and make tea for mainly play, or help with the craft at Bus Stop Cafe! Lots of wonderful volunteer positions exist to love the locals in Jesus’ name.
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