I have the tremendous privilege of volunteering with the birth-preK ministry, Grow Zone, here at PC3. Its mission: “To come alongside families as we teach our littlest ones the basic truths of who God is, confident His image will make a lasting impression.” Through play, worship songs, Bible stories, crafts, snack and even small-group discussions (all amazingly coordinated to fit inside an hour’s time), there are four main principles the staff and volunteers strive to teach the kids week after week, in hopes they will be ingrained in their minds and received in their hearts. These principles are: 1. God made me; 2. God loves me; 3. Jesus wants to be my friend forever; 4. The Bible is God’s story, and everything in it is true.
On any given Sunday, a walk through the Grow-Zone halls is like entering a 3-D, colorful honeycomb, bustling with giant butterflies, smiling volunteers sporting trademark play-dough pants and Crayola-stained fingers, and the luminous trails of beautiful, laughing children. Grow Zone gives all-new meaning to the term “organized chaos”—emphasis on the organized, of course. It is fun and exciting, but it is also very intentional about what is being presented to these children. In other words, this is not just childcare, and we are not babysitters. That is absolutely my favorite part about this ministry. It amazes me sometimes when I stop to think that, alongside their families, we are actually helping teach these little people the very first concepts they will ever learn about God. To think that by investing in them like this they will develop a heart for Jesus and get to know Him so early on in their lives is just incredible…
My personal story as a Grow-Zone volunteer doesn’t begin at Vision Drive or even back at Roland-Grise. It begins in a balmy, bare-walled building with one room, half a world away in Kenya. It was there on a PC3 mission trip in August 2008 that I found myself in front of a large group of joyful African children, acting out the story of Moses with help from two other team members. (The three of us, in charades-like fashion, quite efficiently and I’m sure somewhat humorously found a way to demonstrate the parting of the Red Sea.) We had played and studied the Bible with the boys at Mama Hellen’s Rehabilitation Center all week previously, and the love, enthusiasm, passion for the Lord and His Word, and pure jubilation that radiated within them was reflected back to us as though from a mirror in God’s own hand. It was awe-inspiring, contagious, spirit-filling and… humbling. Standing there at Victorious Gospel Community Church in Nakuru, equipped with extremely limited materials, we quickly learned we had only ourselves to offer these children for a three-hour session of Sunday School. And so offer ourselves we did, in the form of singing songs, acting out Bible stories, asking the children questions about the Bible, playing games, practically any and everything we could come up with outside the realm of modern technology and teaching tools—for that matter, outside the realm of our comfort zones and into the limitless expanse of God’s kingdom. The look in the eyes of those children as they craved to learn more, hear more, discover more about a God they never for one second took for granted rocked the boxed-in faith I had carried over with me on the plane. Knowing about Grow Zone back home—of a different place and capacity entirely, yet just as hands-on and intentional about teaching young people about God—I signed up to volunteer as soon as I got home. It became not only an invaluable way to cope with my re-entry experience and apply what I was processing, but also an excellent and fitting place for me to plug in at PC3 and continue to serve.
Over the past year, Grow Zone has become a place where I can especially and continually see living proof that when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. Just last week, upon discussing with the 4-year-olds in our room that we can pray at any time whatsoever, one little girl piped up from among the tangled cluster of children sitting “criss-cross applesauce,” who were, as always, eager to contribute: “You can even pray if you wake up in the middle of the night, because God stays awake in case we need Him!” It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard a child say. That is, only to be rivaled by yet another one of many memorable Bible-story moments within my experience in Grow Zone, when the teacher I was serving with asked the kids to share some reasons why they are thankful for God. You might expect a bunch of 4-year-olds to say because He gave me this and He gave me that. But one little girl said it best when she simply said, “Because He loves us.”
Oh how He loves us.
—Submitted by Emily Rea
