Church - "Explorers" Children's Club

“Explorers”

When we returned to Peru in 2000 we began a weekly club for children at primary school called “Explorers”. To begin with we met on the patio at Craig & Sue Querfeld’s home.

In June 2001 we moved the club to the house which the church had begun renting. We usually begin with a lively half hour of games.

This gives the latecomers time to arrive and helps the children burn off some extra energy!

It also gives us the opportunity to chat to the children.

A drink of cool water refreshes the children before they head inside for the rest of the programme.

This consists of a lively mix of songs, Bible memory verse, prayer time, Bible story and a quiz to finish off with to find out how much they have learned.

We averaged around 25 children, many of whom came faithfully every week.

It has been very encouraging to see the children learning week by week and also some bringing their families to the Sunday morning service.

As the children leave there is the opportunity to talk with their parents. All in all the “Explorers” club has played an important role in the establishment of “El Camino”. It has been a privilege for us to be involved in this way.

When we went on home assignment at the end of our third term, we handed over responsability to others in the church. On our return at the start of our third term we attended but were not involved in the running apart from Steve doing the games. Rachel was more limited with having baby Joel to care for!

This changed at the end of 2004 when the club was divided into two different age groups. Primary grades 1 to 4 continued as “Explorers” with us now in charge of the programme and a new group, “Discoverers” for primary grades 5 & 6 began with Sue Querfeld in charge. Both groups still begin together for games before meeting for separate programmes.

We hope that others will in time be able to take over the leadership of these groups, but with the church still being relatively young and with a shortage of leaders, we will continue for now.