The Rejoice Project

The purpose of our time in Kenya was to help support a group of young adult volunteers (252 team) put on a camp of sorts in the school to teach the students about uniqueness. It might seem like an easy concept, but lifting these students up and building their self-confidence is hugely important. The idea is that by using their unique gifts that God has given them, they can help others and will in turn help to grow their community.

The bottom line of the Rejoice Project that I feel we, the North Point Church members and 252 volunteers, accomplished as a team is to teach these children that they are fearfully and wonderfully made, unique in every way and loved so, so much.

The lessons team (Cheryl, Raekiela, Nadia and Mike) had the awesome task of really teaching the values and ideas of uniqueness, while the other two teams supported them through arts and games. Cheryl, a retired school teacher, prepared for the trip so well and we are incredibly thankful for the dedicated and thoughtful woman she is. She put together posters, stickers and all sorts of fun laminated visuals that really added such a wonderful level of understanding and excitement and will be cherished by the school for a long time to come. Some of the activities they had were songs, a memory verse shuffle, an Easter egg hunt and acting out the creation story and Noah's ark.

 

 

 

For the sports and games team, the children were entertained for three full days with games like Simon Says, Duck-Duck-Goose, kickball, volleyball, a name game where they said their name and favorite food and activities like hula hooping, bubbles and soccer. The children were taught that each member of a team plays an important role and is irreplaceable because of his or her uniqueness.

 

The art team had our hands full - mostly with glitter on the last day, as evident by the photos of children with glitter smeared on their faces - but also with plenty of projects to help the children better understand the concept of uniqueness. We gave them each a folder at the beginning of the week to house all of their art pieces, like a thumbprint tree with the fruits of the spirit, a butterfly painting, two coloring pages telling the creation story and a uniqueness card for a friend or family member to tell them how special they are.