Sunday school children's party

It's always a thrill when you do something and the Mongolians enjoy it so much that they want to do it again. Such was the case with the Sunday school children's Christmas party. Two years ago (last year we were in the States for Christmas) we held a Christmas party at our home for the children who were attending Sunday school. It was a little surprising when about a month ago, one of our neighbor boys who has been attending Kristie's Sunday school said to Kristie, "Are we going to have a party this year?" He was so excited about it! Kristie actually had been considering something else, but our neighbor boy was so eager to participate again that we decided to go ahead and have a Christmas party for the children on Saturday, December 16.

The children started by decorating bags into which they could later put their goodies. We were disappointed that two of the older Sunday school children missed the party because they had school lessons on Saturday. There were lots of ribbons, stickers, colored pens, and other things with which the children could decorate their bags.

After the bags the children cut out and decorated sugar cookies. The ladies had made some sugar cookie dough, and the children had a great time punching out the shapes and decorating the cookies with food coloring, sprinkles, and various other embellishments. This was the highlight of the party for most of the kids. Mongolians don't make cookies and don't have all the various shaped punches with which to cut out cookies. They thought it was great fun to roll out the door, cut it into various shapes, and then apply decorations to it.

Then while the cookies were baking, there was a gift exchange. Like all children, Mongolian children enjoy opening gifts and watching others open gifts.

After the gift exchange we had a Mongolian game of Pictionary. We had a white board and some simple Mongolian words that my wife had thought up and written down on slips of paper. The children had a blast drawing and guessing the drawings. It was fun to watch the five and six year olds try to draw and the older children seemingly scratch their heads trying to figure out what it was that they were drawing.

Then the activites were done, and the children left with their cookies and a Gospel tract. They all have heard the Gospel in Sunday school and it is our prayer that not only the children but also the parents would be saved. Please pray for our ministry to children in Mongolia and pray that it would continue to provide opportunities to be a witness to the parents as well.