Arequipa Children's Ministry


The ACM was set up to help the children in the area in both their physical and spiritual needs.
Currently the programme has several areas in which it aims to help:

1) Breakfast Feeding Programme
2) Sunday School Teacher Training
3) Scholarships for a local Christian School
4) Baby/children’s medical needs
5) Support for children’s camps

There are 26 churches who currently run the programme and they all vary in the number of children who attend. But each feeds the children a nutritious breakfast before school each morning during term time. At present there are 2000 children who receive their breakfast each school morning.

The morning begins with a bible programme which includes singing, quizzes and a bible story, similar to a Sunday School.
The breakfast follows and consists of porridge and a small bread roll. In some areas the children take it in turn to collect the water needed for their breakfast.
The children thoroughly enjoy the whole time.

The breakfast feeding programme is used by the local church as a means of outreach into their community and therefore they have the responsibility of means-testing the children/families involved in the project. It is only permitted that 3 children from each family attend the project at any one time. However, if the family desires, they can alternate which children attend from week to week to ensure that the whole family receives the food.
The parents, too, are involved and they must attend a regular monthly meeting which can take the form of both preventive health and a spiritual aspect. Normally at this meeting the children take part to show their parents what they are learning each morning.
The responsibility for choosing the children solely lies with the church. This helps them to fulfil their task of stewardship and reaching out to the community within the great commission and is good for them to learn the difficult needs and musts that are expected of them if they desire to have such a programme.

At Christmas time, the project donates Christmas cakes/panatones (or whatever if culturally appropriate) to the projects so that the children may have a celebration as a group. On top of this, sometimes there are parcels of colouring-in books/crayons/light toiletries/t-shirts that are given out at Christmas – almost like the shoe-box appeal – things that the children might need.

Health

Within the remit of the ACM, some of the younger children (toddlers especially) their weight would be measured at a regular occurrence to make sure that they are not malnourished. This along with the preventive health talks hopefully will encourage the parents with the physical and emotional upbringing of their children and the support from the local church, can encourage parents in their task of being a family.