Missions

Juliette Arulrajah is the MMS Area Director for Cambodia and Laos. She is also the Chairperson of the MMS Training Committee. / Photos courtesy of MMS

Facilitator Cindy Ho shares about Timor Leste, one of MMS’s mission fields Thav Veasna (right) sharing about COSI, the children’s home in Cambodia where he grew up

God is calling us!” excitedly shared a Lower Primary participant in Kids Missions Adventures (KMA) after “travelling” to Timor-Leste on the zoom digital platform and “interacting” with Rita, a young student at St Paul Methodist School. Rita has a dream to make a difference in her community by becoming an educator and is currently taking little practical steps to fulfil that dream.

In response to how God was calling us to reach out to children during the year-end school holidays, KMA was organised by the Methodist Missions Society (MMS) in partnership with the Boards of Missions of the Chinese Annual Conference (CAC), Emmanuel Tamil Annua Conference (ETAC) and Trinity Annual Conference (TRAC), as well as the CAC Board of Family Life and TRAC Board of Children Ministry.

A first for Singapore Methodists, KMA was an engaging and hands-on programme where 321 children (170 in Lower Primary and 151 in Upper Primary) from the 46 churches of our three Annual Conferences had mission adventures in three different countries (Cambodia, Nepal and Timor-Leste), moving seamlessly from one to another from 10 a.m. to noon on 14 Nov 2020. KMA kicked off with creative investigative icebreakers and worship led by children from Grace Methodist Church. The children were then prepared to go on their own mission adventures with the stirring “live” testimony of Thav Veasna. Veasna grew up at COSI (a children’s home) in Cambodia, met Jesus, saw first-hand God’s intervention in his life and that of his family (including the miraculous healing of his terminally ill mother), his graduation to fulfil his dream of becoming a civil engineer, and then hearing God’s call to serve as a Methodist pastor in Cambodia for which God led him to Singapore and Trinity Theological College, where he is currently studying.

“My daughter had such an interesting and fun-filled time with the other 10 children in her breakout group,” said a mother after the event. Working in pairs, 72 facilitators (aged between 20 and 70 from different churches) provided a meaningful God-centred time for the children in their breakout groups. In these small groups, the children shared their impressions about life in other nations as well as how this impacted them, prayed, learnt a Nepali song, and penned encouragement notes to a missionary of their choice or to someone of a different culture.

Sharing their “takeaways” readily and joyously after their return from the breakout sessions, the children were

inspired collectively by a short video to go, share, pray and give. After this came a spiritually empowering time when they committed themselves afresh to Jesus, covenanted with God to try to discover and follow His dream for their lives even as they were commissioned to go forth in the Wesleyan fashion as the world is our parish.

Indeed, God moved far beyond our expectations and imaginations! Many facilitators shared how they were blessed by the children’s passion and insights even as they themselves learnt new things about missions and made friends with facilitators from different churches and Annual Conferences. When they received the postevent follow-up materials for their children, parents shared that their children had a positive experience at KMA! Veasna was touched by the encouragement and well wishes he received through photos of the children’s messages sent by some facilitators via WhatsApp and several the children themselves mailed to him.

In addition, Pasir Panjang Tamil Methodist Church WSCS was spurred further into missions caring and giving. Barker Road Methodist Church also ran a contextualised adapted KMA with MMS resources just before Christmas 2020 for their Primary Sunday School, again with positive outcomes.

Encouragement and well-wishes the children at KMA sent to Veasna after the event

Psalm 25:4–5