Meeting Under Trees
23-Sep-2021
This week, meet Audrey Ncube, a Seventh-day Adventist in Zimbabwe. Audrey and her sister moved to a town with no Adventist church. In fact, the nearest one was 28 miles away! For a while, the sisters met for worship in their homes, but they soon outgrew those spaces and were forced to meet outside. Here, dealing with the rain was a regular battle, and the conditions also made it hard to invite guests to church.
Your kids will see firsthand the predicament many church members find themselves in, and they will consider Maranatha’s overwhelming challenge of trying to put a strong roof over so many heads.
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Pre-video Discussion Questions
Has the rain (or something else weather-related) ever ruined your plans? What happened? How did it feel?
VIDEO
In today’s video, two sisters struggle to grow their church without a building.
Post-video Discussion Questions
Do you ever think about problems that are too big for one person to solve, like all of the people who don’t have homes or enough food to eat? How does it make you feel to think about how big those problems are?
Sometimes big problems may feel overwhelming to us, and it seems like we can’t make a difference. There is a story in the Bible (Mark 6:30-44) where Jesus was speaking to a large group of people—5,000 in fact. These people had been listening to Him speak all day and were hungry. Jesus wanted to feed them, but there was no market nearby to buy food for everyone. The disciples found five loaves of bread and two fish among the crowd, but they needed much more than that. How would they provide enough food for all of these people? Jesus worked a miracle by slowly making more bread and fish. As he broke apart loaves of bread, more filled up the baskets. It wasn’t enough at first, but Jesus kept going. Each time he broke apart the bread, a little more filled the baskets. He continued on until there was enough to feed everyone there. Jesus’ approach is a great reminder that when there is a big problem, we can work on it a little bit at a time to help however we can. Just like Maranatha’s problem of how to build churches for all of the thousands of congregations out there, what is a big problem that you would like to start working on, even in a small way?
Prayer Points
For all of the congregations without a good place to meet.
Maranatha’s efforts to help these congregations.
Ask kids what they would add to the prayer list.
Did You Know?
Our One-Day Church crews often spend weeks at a time in the bush going from site to site as they build new structures. They take materials for a handful of churches in a large truck and bring tents, food, and supplies for the entire time they are in the wilderness.