Children connect to church in Congo
Hearing stories, raising funds and making scrapbooks build relationships.
by Anna GroffPrint Article Email to a Friend
The children’s convention, decorated with flags from Congo, Haiti, China, Lithuania, Dominican Republic and more, created a space for more than 100 elementary-age children to consider others around the world.
Stanley Green, executive director of Mennonite Mission Network, tells the story of Eldad from Congo. Photo by Anna Groff.
One morning they processed to the adult worship with their flags and offered the adults a peace prayer. Other mornings they carried metal buckets to the exits of the adult worships asking for loose change to raise money for medicine in hospitals in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The children helped count the change after each day’s collection.
Other efforts to be a part of the Congo-Mennonite Church USA relationship include making scrapbook pages to send to Congo and hearing a story from Stanley Green, executive director of Mennonite Mission Network, who traveled to Congo as part of the Mennonite Church USA delegation in January.
Green visited the children’s convention on Tuesday morning and told the story of 11-year-old Eldad, a boy in the Congo who offered Green’s delegation a 500 Congolose Franc note for the visitors to buy a cake—an extremely humbling act of generosity, Green said.
Rosemary Widmer, a children’s convention leader, said the children could relate to Eldad—a child their age—and they appreciated the idea of a child offering to help an older person.
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