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Junior Fellowship Course
24th – 27th July
Meryl and I travelled down to Trefeca in July,
which was the setting for Junior Fellowship
again this year. We were very pleased to see
twelve children between the ages of 8 and 12, a
rise in numbers from last year.
Everybody arrived on the Monday afternoon; some
began to catch up with friends from last year
whilst others got to know each other for the
first time. After supper and ‘The Bank’ with
Edward Kielty, Meryl began the first session.
This year’s course focussed on the theme ‘What’s
in a Name?’, exploring meanings of the names
applied to Jesus in the Bible. The first session
acted as an introduction to the importance of
names. Each child was asked to think of words
that best describe them and they were even given
a new Biblical name for the evening! Following
this, we began to look at the name of Jesus,
using the section of the gospels where an angel
tells Mary to give this name to her son, because
‘he will save his people from their sins’
(Matthew 1:21). After learning this verse, ‘sin’
and ‘saving’ were explained along with an
alternative version of ‘Stuck in the Mud’,
called ‘Stuck in Sin’. Later that evening,
everybody enjoyed some silly games before going
to bed.
We were all up, bright and early, for breakfast
at 8:30, before we began the second session
entitled, ‘Jesus – Son of God’. Everyone was
still quite sleepy, so we started with a song
and a couple of games, which seemed to do the
trick! The story of the morning was Jesus
walking on water, which the children enjoyed
acting out and then learning a verse. We went on
to do some craft activities. Everyone was given
card and could design anything to do with the
theme of names. Some decided to do their own
names, whilst others focussed on the name of
Jesus. We were very impressed by the creativity
shown in these craft activities.
After lunch, everyone enjoyed a trip to the
leisure centre at Brecon for swimming, and
before long it was time for the third session,
‘Jesus – Son of David’. We looked at the story
of Bartimaeus, why he addressed Jesus as the Son
of David, and what this meant. The conclusion
was that because Jesus was a real man, he knows
what it is like to be human. As a result, he can
sympathise with human problems and is looking
after people wherever they go. That evening,
everyone enjoyed the film ‘The Lion, The Witch
and the Wardrobe’ before bed.
We were blessed with fantastic weather again on
the Wednesday morning. For the final three
sessions, we made use of the illustrations
offered by the Narnia film, which we found
worked very well with the children. The morning
session focussed on ‘Jesus – The Lion’. After
some craft and games, the two teams began to
learn the verse, ‘See the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, the root of David, has triumphed’
(Revelation 5:5), and were asked to present it.
Both teams were exceptionally creative; we saw
excellent mimes and even a rap! We then watched
a clip from ‘Miracle Maker’, in which Jesus
cleared the Temple. The children then enjoyed
miming the story with plenty of paper money!
This was used to show that whilst Jesus is kind,
he is no push-over. As it is said in Narnia, “He
is good. But he's not a tame lion”.
We made the most of the good weather in the
afternoon as Pam and Glo Davies led some fun
(and energetic!) outdoor activities such as
Kickball and Scavenger and Treasure hunts. After
some much needed and deserved rest time, there
was one more session before the eagerly
anticipated ten pin bowling. This session,
called ‘Jesus – The Saviour’, looked at the
story of Aslan, the lion of Narnia, dying for
Edmund, and how Jesus has actually done the same
for all people. We focussed on that whilst Aslan
is a fictional character, Jesus is the real
Lion. Just as the children were friends with
Aslan in the film, everyone can also be friends
with Jesus.
The evening came, and it was finally time for
ten pin bowling! There was some (friendly)
competition between the two teams and a good
evening was had by all.
Thursday morning arrived with the dreaded
prospect of packing! We then moved on to the
last session, ‘Jesus – The Resurrection’, which
looked at Jesus coming back to life and meeting
with his followers. We finished with a quiz on
all the sessions; it was great to see that the
children had clearly learnt a lot over the week.
After lunch and plenty of group photos, cars
started to arrive and the goodbyes began. We
were very glad to have such a great group of
children over the week, as well as the extremely
valuable help from Pam, Glo, Edward and Diane.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable week for all.
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