This week, travel with us to India, where we’ll visit the Jingshai Mihngi Adventist School. For years, students and teachers here endured the stench of an open sewer line directly next to their classrooms. Maranatha responded to a request for help, and despite many challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic and monsoon season, a new campus was dedicated in February 2021.

We hope your children can put themselves in the shoes of the kids and teachers at the Jingshai Mihngi school, imagining what it would be like to learn in those conditions each day. They’ll also consider how they can be joyful no matter their circumstances.

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Pre-video Discussion Questions
- What is the stinkiest smell you’ve ever experienced? What would it be like to read a book next to it all day long?

Post-video Discussion Questions
- Students learned in those smelly classrooms for years—how do you think they did it?
- Have you ever had to do something really hard, and it wasn’t really fair? What was it?
- When we have problems, it’s easy to become angry or sad—after all, things shouldn’t be that way! But we also get to choose how we’ll act in those situations, even as we try to make things better. The Bible actually says that God wants us to be thankful in all circumstances. Let’s read about it directly from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” How are we supposed to have joy and be thankful when things aren’t going well? Do you have any ideas?
- What is one problem you have going on right now, and how could you be joyful, even as you try to make it better?

Prayer Points
- To be joyful in all circumstances.
- Ask kids what they would add to the prayer list.

Did You Know?
- Because the land at the Jingshai Mihngi school is so hilly, the new water well was dug by hand, instead of using a drilling machine. Workers used tools like shovels to dig a large hole 26 feet deep to find the water.