A givers gift

Every Wednesday a bunch of kids from 7 to 11 years old, are coming to a after-school program ran by the church I attend here in oslo. I’ve been a co-worker there for two years, and this fall i joined the leader-team. Most of these kids are muslims and we don’t do active evangelization, we simply show them that God loves them by giving them a place to be, dinner, a chance to get contact with adults, and we have different activities for them. It’s a really cool place to be, but it’s not like a quiet sewing circle where we tell fairytales to the kids. This is in the field, being Jesus’ soldiers! There is often fighting, shouting, the kids can almost do anything to get a little attention. It’s sad to see, but the ones that makes the most trouble, and we want to kick out, that’s the ones we need to sit down and talk with. But it’s not easy to get them talk..

We have many nice times too!! Times where there’s almost no fighting and the kids are just having a nice time. The sad part though, is that those times, are when the trouble-makers are absent.

Tonight I was so so blessed. This spring we had a competition at the club between the boys and the girls. If there were some boys doing nice things as helping out with stuff, and following rules they got one; . If they were doing things against the rules they got one; . And the same for the girls. Or they could get both. Then, at the end of the semester, we counted, and this time the girls had most ‘s. So their reward was a over-night party! While the girls were inside having fun, me and another leader made a bonfire out in the back yard and when we were ready they came out. We wanted to scare them a little, so when they came we pretended to be fighting and they were so scared:P But when we started to talk and they recognized our voices they dared to come over. We were ready to serve them pancakes! They were so suprised and asked over and over again why we were there and why we did this. It was so nice and truly a gift to see how happy they were!!