Along with teaching 7th and 8th grades at Windham Christian Academy in suburban Portland, Maine, I am also the student ministries coordinator.  This is really the role I enjoy most of all. So, along with the four middle school officers, we planned a day of ministry for December 15th.  First my class performed their Gospel juggling show for grades K through six. The show included some of our regular material, but we added a couple of routines to promote our school wide mission project of sending farm animals and Bibles to Dalat families in India through Gospel for Asia ( http://www.gfa.org/ )  We did a comic version to "Old MacDonald" that simply had to be seen and heard, describing it won't do it justice.

After the show, my middle schoolers broke into groups of five or six, led by the class officers, and each group led an elementary class in a hands on ministry project. Grades K through two made Christmas cards and ornaments for the patients at Riverview Psychiatric Hospital, to be distributed by our good friend Chaplain James.  My students also videoed grades one and two as they wished Merry Christmas and sang carols for the children of Agape House, an orphanage in Uganda.  Through modern technology, one of our students was able to send these greetings directly to Uganda by attaching it to their facebook page.  To me it all seems like electronic sorcery, but  I know this will be a blessing to those sweet kids in Kampala.  ( http://agapeuganda.org/agape-house/ )

The third and fourth grades were split by gender.  A group of my female students brought the 3 / 4 girls to a local retirement home to visit the women there, complete with hand massages, board games, and a guest appearance by our bunny, Jeremiah.  The boys in third and fourth were led by Caleb (appointed an honorary MS officer for the day, as we needed five) and a team of my students in baking Christmas cookies that were then delivered to the local fire and police departments.

I helped supervise the team Rachel led as they worked with the fifth and sixth grades.  They had collected tooth paste, brushes, hygiene products, fruit, bottled water, and Christian literature.  They then made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and packed 15 bags for people in Portland without homes.  We then loaded the two groups of kids, the 5 / 6 teacher and myself into the school van and headed to the city.  What a cool experience as, in small groups, Mr. Lincoln and I led kids to approach men and women with these gifts.  I believe there is no way to measure what the students learned that day as they interacted with the homeless.  One man eagerly showed how he could do hand stand push ups (very impressive!).  So many wished us a merry Christmas.  All were grateful, and we distributed almost all of the bags.

As the teachers debriefed about the day, we were struck by not only how many individuals, but how many groups we were able to bless: the elderly, orphans, the homeless, community heroes, the mentally ill.  As it says in Proverbs, "Many hands make light work."

 But arguably the ones who got the most out of the day were the students and teachers of Windham Christian Academy.