Conference, Kids, Kalungas, and a Door Jam

Today I am playing catch up from a VERY packed weekend. My friend Camila (below) asked me to be one of the leaders of a children's program for a church's missions conference here in Anapolis. Although children's ministry like this is not part of our regular ministry work, she was short handed so I agreed.
The weekend was packed! Every time there was a missions conference event for the adults during the weekend, we held an activity for the kids upstairs....Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, and Sunday evening.

About 60 kids came out and we divided into different age groups - I worked with Rose leading the 5-7 year olds and we did some activities with everyone together. Most of the kids were from the church, but there was one really special group of kids that were Brazilian but come from a very different culture....

the Kalunga culture. The name Kalunga describes a people group from the state of Goias Brazil (the state that we live in) that are descendants of runaway African slaves when there was slavery in Brazil. The slaves fled to an extremely isolated and hilly region where they knew they would never be found by their masters. Although many generations have passed, (and slavery no longer exists in Brazil) their descendants still live in this very isolated area in extremely poor conditions, living off the land, far from city life.

The church that held the conference set up a mission/orphanage in the Kalunga region and a missionary couple lives and serves there. Some of the children who go to school at the mission are orphans and live there because they don't have a family. Others have family in the region, but their home is a 4 hour walk from the school, so they live at the school and visit home every few weeks. The Kalunga families are extremely poor, many don't even have electricity. They don't have cars, (although some have horses) so getting around the hilly region is quite a long and hard trek. I don't know if you used to watch the old tv series "Christy" but that's the kind of lifestyle and culture that the Kalunga reality reminded me of.

The mission does a great job taking care of the children. The children were extremely well behaved, polite, healthy, and took great care of one another. They came out to the conference for the weekend so they could get to know the church and so the church could meet them first hand.

My co-leader, Rose, spent some time in the Kalunga region doing ministry work. She said walking into the region from the nearest city was one of the longest, and most difficult hikes she could imagine. It's hard to imagine 4,000 people living in our state with such a different reality than the one we have here in Anapolis!

It was such a joy to serve this special people group this weekend and get a small glimpse into their lives and culture.

We enjoyed lots of arts and crafts, teaching about prayer,

and on Sunday we brought the kids to Asas de Socorro to show them a little about our mission (after all, it was a missions conference!) Here's us playing some games in the new hangar....

And a few of the kids (with their parents' permission) went on panoramic flights.

This one boy on the left was especially interested in mission aviation and was asking all kinds of questions. Who knows, maybe he's a future Asas de Socorro pilot?

While the flights were probably the most memorable part of the weekend for the kids, the part I will never forget was Sunday night. We had all passed our limits (both teacher and students) and were just about to let the kids head out to their parents as the last songs were playing. For a moment, Rose stepped out of the room and I was alone with 2o or so 5-7 year olds who were bouncing off the walls. After a few mintues Rose tried to open the door to come back in but it wouldn't open! For some fluke reason the door jammed itself shut with me and the kids inside! For about 15 minutes I had to try to keep the kids calm and from screaming out the windows as they went crazy!

On the other side of the door, the teachers were trying everything to get the door unjammed. Finally one of them got Jeyson out of the service knowing he had a good chance of getting me out with his mechanic skills. After a few minutes and some huge shoves, we were free. As we walked out of the church, all around I could here the students telling their parents about how were almost had to sleep in the room overnight :) haha - what a grand finale!!!