Mike and Anita James » children’s ministry

Zuper Zondag

Anita — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:41:28 +0000

We had our first Zuper Zondag (Super Sunday) today. We were so excited. It’s been something that has been coming for a long time. From now on, we’ll be having a special, evangelistic service on the second Sunday of each month.

We’ve gotten a new puppet stage from BGMC money. We also were given funds by Dallas Dream Center to buy other equipment we needed such as sound equipment and banners.

Our new puppet stage courtesy of BGMC

Banner provided by the Dallas Dream Center

Besides the service, we break into clubs. Mike taught puppets to some of the children while others made a sheep cupcake. (We were talking about The Lost Sheep.)

Puppet club at Zuper Zondag

Cooking club at Zuper Zondag

We had 30 children for our first time, and we’re excited about reaching even more boys and girls in The Netherlands!

Videos, Videos and More Videos

Anita — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:59:08 +0000

We’ve been so busy working on a curriculum. We’ve done an entire series on Psalm 23. There are so many steps to the process. Mike writes the lessons. Then, we video the puppets and characters for the lessons. Next, I edit it and get the video ready. We have friends who translate it into Dutch for us. Then, I add subtitles to the video. Our church is an international church. Some children speak Dutch and some speak English. It makes it a bit of a challenge to do a curriculum for such a church. Fortunately, we have another church that is able to use the curriculum, and we’re hoping that even more will be able to use it.

We’re able to put our videos on YouTube so our workers can see the videos that we’ll use in church. If you’d like to see any of our videos, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/MikeAndAnita.

Last week we shot videos for the next set of lessons. Tomorrow, I’ll start the process all over again. The fun never ends!

A Little Bit of Everything

Anita — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:15:41 +0000

Earlier this week, both Grace and I were sick. Fortunately, our fevers only lasted a day or two. It came at a terrible time though. I guess there’s never a good time to get sick, but we got sick when we had company coming. Our friends were sick the week before, so they had no problem coming into the “sick house.”

The sickness kept me from editing videos. I’ve finally started on it again today. We are working on a curriculum for our church that has video segments. It should make it much easier for the workers, but it does create much more work for us. We converted our guest room into a studio of sorts. We’ve shot the video for the first four weeks. Now, I’m editing it all. When I’m done with that, we’ve got to get subtitles on it. Our church is international and it functions with two main languages: English and Dutch. Het kost veel tijd om iets in twee talen te doen! (It takes a lot of time to do something in two languages!)

So, while I’m working on video editing today, Mike is at the VPE congress. The VPE is the church organization we work with here in The Netherlands. Today is their yearly meeting. It actually started yesterday. Mike went yesterday to teach a seminar on children’s ministry It’s nice that we are a team and can keep working even when we’re apart.

Christmas in September

Anita — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:00:26 +0000

After having to have our things go through customs, we were really happy to have our things arrive in The Netherlands. It seems like it’s been so long since we shipped it from America that I had forgotten many of the things we packed. That’s why it felt a little like Christmas today.

Our crate in The Netherlands

We had our winter clothes, some of Grace’s toys, towels, kitchen items, office supplies and children’s ministry supplies. I think that when I opened this, I giggled the most in excitement. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a slow cooker for Europe, but we actually found one at a store in Dallas.

My slow cooker for Europe

Grace had many clothes that someone had handed down to her, so she got to have a bit of a fashion show. As you can guess, she enjoyed that. I think of all the things we had in our crate, this is what Mike was the most excited about.

Taco Bell hot sauce

The caption on the sauce said, “Ahhhh. We meet again.” Mike said that it was really appropriate. You can see that he didn’t waste any time in using some of the packages.

Busy Weekend

Anita — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:57:27 +0000

On Friday and Saturday, Mike attended a leaders’ weekend here in The Netherlands. He had a wonderful time and got to reconnect with many people who work with the VPE, the church organization we work with.

On Sunday morning, we led a family Sunday at ICL, the International Church of Leiden. It was so great to be able to minister there again. It’s been over a year, and we were amazed at how many of the children not only remembered the puppets but also things they would say and do.

On Sunday afternoon, we ministered in The Hague at Thousand Hills Church The Hague. This was the church’s first core group meeting.

Playing a game in kids' church

We had a great time with the kids and are expecting to see great things happen through this church. The core group meetings will take place every other week until the church officially launches on Easter. We will continue to help with their children’s ministry and train leaders to work with children.

Kids at Thousand Hills Church The Hage