The Celebrating Children Workshop 2009 in Kigali, Rwanda was a great time of sharing and learning together.  Over the three weeks participants explored numerous topics, including the value of a child, how children grow and develop, the effects of trauma on them, what God's intentions are for children and how we, as the body of Christ can be instrumental in restoring their lives to these intentions.  One of the members of the Celebrating Children Curriculum team, Kay Morales, kept a running blog of the workshop.  Here are some of her thoughts and observations over the three weeks:

 Week One

"Well, our first morning went well. We began with worship and then Eva (also a member of the CCC team) introduced an art-themed sharing time which was great. We had a tea break and registration, thenback to class for more sharing and introducing and afterwards, we had lunch, where Eva and I sat with two men from Uganda and Congo. The Ugandan man is a children's pastor with the Anglican church who is not a YWAMer but heard about the Children At Risk School, and consequently the workshop, by googling "training for children at risk" - amazing and encouraging!

Janna shared a teaching around Mark 9 - about putting the child in the middle of our discipleship of the nations and laid a biblical framework of the value of a child. Ed (CCC team member) compiled all the information from the ministry posters we had the students do and came up with the following data:

25 ministries represented at the workshop.

People being ministered to: widows, orphans, street children, disabled children, prostitutes and their children, Sunday school children, pastors, Sunday school teachers and child-care workers.

Kinds of ministry: primary through university education, evangelism, drama, music, dance, sports, healthcare (including HIV/AIDS), counseling, photography, visitation, clean water, environmental protection and child's rights.

Total children being impacted: 31,000 - about equal amount of girls and boys.

I spent time with two young women (17 & 18) who are still in highschool and have started a ministry for orphans on the streets, feeding, clothing and trying to help pay for their schooling. They are so cute and bright and I enjoyed them so much.

After lunch, Janna introduced Child Growth and Development and then Teresa (member of the CCC team) also taught. Both were excellent. People seemed to hang on every word. We will show more of a presentation called 'In The Womb' tomorrow. This is new for so many people.

At end of that session I asked participants to spend a bit of time thinking about how the teaching has impacted/encouraged, provoked them etc. over the past two days. We didn't have time for them to really do any art with it as planned, at least not today (we see our time will be squeezed).  But, it was good to read the things they've written such as: "I realize that God wants each child to have at least one committed, caring adult..."

In her session, Teresa showed photos of conception and the early development of the embryo and then asked that they stop and thank God for their parents and for His design for life. A number of people commented on that being very meaningful.

"On Wednesday and Thursday, Teresa spoke on Risk and Resilience. Interestingly enough, there didn't seem to be a word for resilience in Kinyarwanda, so that made for some interesting translating. Teresa used the image of two tree branches - bending one till it snapped (to show how a child can succumb to risk) and one so it didn't break but sprung back up (to show resilience.) It was a great way to lay the foundation for her teaching.

On Friday, Heather and Ed spoke. Heather shared on Attachment and Attachment Disorder.  The students learned that when a caregiver responds to the needs of a child, that child learns they are valuable, wanted, worthwhile and good at things. In other words if a child is securely attached it impacts their whole life.
Later, Ed did an exercise with the class using a tool for analysing why children are at risk. We call it the "But why?" flow chart. The chart helps people to think about the root causes of the problems they encounter - looking beyond the superficial answers, to the more fundamental issues. Each group of students was assigned a "risk"- for example: orphanhood, disease, homelessness etc. They did a great job presenting their findings.

I had a conversation with a young participant who told me that her mother had been in a wheelchair before she died and that she had enjoyed pushing her (she asked if she could push me around too). I asked how old she was when her mother died. She answered that she was five years old but could remember her mother. I asked about her father and she said he died when she was two and that she was raised by her brothers. Then she looked at me and asked if I had parents still living.  I paused for a while, feeling almost guilty for having two living parents!  And then, I was overwhelmed by how fortunate I have been to have parents in my life.

Well, one third of the workshop is already behind us and we are constantly evaluating as we go along . . . and enjoying it all.

Stay tuned for more updates from the team from Week Two!

Week Two

We are two-thirds of the way through our workshop and week two was a good one!

On Monday, I taught on “The Needs of Staff”. The teaching covered motivations for ministry and spiritual refreshment as well as a session on learning their strengths which Lenneke (team member) and others taught.

On Tuesday, Eva shared on "Listening to Children" - excellent material. One of her opening statements was “Kids should be heard, not because they are never wrong, but because adults are not always right” and that laid the groundwork for her teaching. She incorporated lots of art projects into the teaching.

Wednesday, the students presented a project called "child in context", and then finished watching National Geographic’s "In the Womb". It was new material for most of the participants. At certain points some of them had their hands over their eyes, but they loved it.

At tea break we had a class photo taken (left). 

Thursday, Ed taught "Child Discipline". It was very good and he got the students talking about discipline in their lives. He used lots of different teaching techniques to show the difference between discipline and punishment. One student shared how his father punished him severely. He discovered that his father had been punished by his dad with the same technique. He stood and made a vow to not punish his children that way and break his family’s cycle of a very abusive form of punishment.

Friday, Ed tackled Child Protection policies. He presented the Rwandan child protection laws and then showed YWAM's Child Protection policy. There was lots of good discussion with people giving examples. When he asked how many would like to meet with him about writing a Child Protection policy for their ministry, over half raised their hands. So he'll do a separate session next week.

In the afternoon, Janna fielded some of the student's questions. One lady's question was, "I've come to learn that putting a child in a group home or orphanage can put them at risk. What are the alternatives to this?"  Really good question! As always, Janna amazed me with her very wise responses.

A number of us began meeting with the participants individually to find out if there are any other subjects they'd like us to cover in the last week of teaching. The people I've interviewed have responded that they have come to understand for the first time the value of the child and God's intentions for the child and are very content (maybe even thrilled) with the workshop content. It has been so encouraging to hear their feedback. It would not be fun to run a workshop and not give the participants what they came for. Jesus has been so faithful to them and us.

Pam and Stuart Mitchell have been meeting with individuals who want prayer. Some people have been able to share openly about painful pasts and receive specific ministry. We are so happy that Stuart and Pam and their big "pastoral hearts" were able to come along to serve the participants in this way.

I have just finished reading “Left To Tell: discovering God amidst the Rwandan holocaust” by Immaculee IIibagiza. (It reminded me so much of Corrie Ten Boon’s “The Hiding Place”.)  It is sobering to read her story of Rwanda’s genocide while being in Rwanda. 

“A good home is the first heaven. A bad home is the first hell.”

Week Three

It’s Saturday morning and we will soon be having our final debriefing time.  Looking back over the last three very intense weeks, we are experiencing mixed emotions: gratefulness - that the workshop exceeded our expectations, relief - that the pressure of some very packed and long days is over, but also, so sad to see all our participants leave. We made over fifty new friends!

One of our new friends made the comment that we were sending them away so full - that is so encouraging and our prayer is that all the “fullness” will spill over and touch the lives of many children.

During the final week we finished teaching on 'listening to children'. We examined the Convention on the Rights of the Child and looked at each of the Convention articles to see if they held biblical values. We continued with teachings on advocacy, program development, the difference between “prevention” and “restoration” programs and how to evaluate your ministry, with examples of good and bad evaluations.

Friday, our final day, began with worship and our two youngest participants, Sandrah and Monicah, led us in a game they’d modified from a well-known Rwandese game called Fun Box. Each participant drew a question out of the box to answer - an example of a question was "What was the most important thing you learned at this workshop?"  We spent time reflecting on the many tools we received to help us in our work with children. We read scriptures reminding us of God’s concern and intentions for the child and our responsibility to defend, encourage, uphold…

I asked Mary Zema, an amazing lady from Uganda, to share insights she gained from the workshop. This is what she wrote:  “It has been eye opening for me to learn about the importance of listening to children and how to listen to children in many different ways. . . Advocating for the weak is not easy . . . In order to listen to a child well I should kneel down to their level.”

We spent time praying for each of the participants and this was followed by a wonderful meal of chapatis, beef stew, Fanta, and fruit salad, and then our certificate ceremony. We honored each student for their commitment to children. What an amazing group!

A bit about the future…

On Monday, we met with participants who were interested in forming a network for the purpose of encouragement and sharing teaching and resources. We have a few people who are willing to spearhead this effort. This is very exciting for us! We are already planning how we can have a “facilitator’s training” in order to multiply this workshop across Africa and elsewhere.