God Made Me

Our children’s ministry currently welcomes between 3 and 12 children each day, a lower than typical attendance due to COVID-19. The children range in age from babies to 10 years old during the summer (under age 5 during the school year). The staff and volunteers work to ensure that each child that arrives is infused with the knowledge that God knows them, loves them and that they are specially created by Him. With the uncertainty that exists in a lot of our clients’ lives, we don’t know whether we’ll have days, weeks or months to minister to a given little one, and we don’t want to waste any opportunity to speak God’s love, belonging and purpose into their lives.

Four-year-old Giovanni has been coming fairly regularly to BsideU with his mom and two younger siblings. While his mom participates in the life skills classes, he is cared for in our children’s ministry program. Kimberley Forsythe, our Children’s Ministry Coordinator/Lead Teacher plans weekly themes about God and how He loves and calls us. One week, the theme was, “God created me to be special.” In the lesson about Creation, Kimberley emphasized that unlike how God created the sun, trees, and animals, with His Word, He formed man with His hands and breathed life into man’s nostrils, showing how people were a special creation. Kimberley gave the children playdough and had the kids “create” their own people figures.  Giovanni carefully formed the head, body, and limbs and attempted to “breathe life” into it. Kimberley emphasized that God created us and gives us life.

In a recent Life Skills class discussion, Giovanni’s mom mentioned that her son had asked her to sing the “Jesus song” to him at home, but she didn’t know the words. One of the Life Skills teachers texted Kimberley, so that when she came to pick up the kids, she could ask Giovanni if they could sing it for his mom. When she arrived, Giovanni and Kimberley sang an upbeat version of “Jesus Loves Me” for his mom. It gives us great joy to have the opportunity, as a team, to teach moms and their children about Jesus, and see God draw them to Himself as a family.

To learn about how you can volunteer in our children’s ministry, click here.