EFM is consistently encouraged to hear of stories from Friends churches around the United States and the wonderful and creative ways they are helping to support EFM and our missionaries! We recently received this encouraging story from Pastor Grady at Bolton Friends Church in EFC-MAYM about how they engage their children in mission work! Their church does a Chicken vs. Goat Contest to raise funds!
| This Race started several years ago during our weekly Kids Club. We hold two sessions of Kids Club. One starting in late September and running through December -the week before Christmas. The second session starts the second Wednesday of January and ends the last Wednesday of April. The EFM Christmas catalogue gives the opportunity to help purchase animals – goats and chickens- that is where we got our team mascots from. We divided the group up (adults included) into two teams, chickens and goats. There are two coffee cans that we set on the attendance table and as the kids arrive, they (and the adults) put money in their team can. One of the adults is the club banker who counts the money and records the total. During the last twenty minutes of kids club he delivers the weeks winner, sealed in a mayonnaise jar to show that the results have not been tampered with. The results are posted on the bulletin board in the hallway and the winner is mentioned in the bulletin along with the running totals. Below are two pictures, one of the bulletin board of the last race and the cans we put the money in.
The picture of the bulletin board is the last race. The numbers on the bottom right are the results of past races, the one in the bottom middle is the September-December 2021 race. The best response we got from the kids was when EFM sent a picture of the Carpenters and their new vehicle. I told the kids “We didn’t buy the car but we helped.” The picture was passed around and the response was priceless. Our kids club is an all church program. We have almost as many adults attending (leaders, etc.) as we do kids. As any “expert in the field of finance” will tell you, it’s important to get the adults involved.
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Do you have a story you would like to share with EFM? We would love to hear from you and share your story with others! You can email your story to Krista Alvarez here.
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