Last week, we held Quiet Spaces at Melrose.

In these sessions we transform a classroom into a quiet and reflective space. Draping throws and covers over the bookshelves and counters, we set up prayer stations with relaxing music in the background.

This time some of our stations were :

Friendship flower – The students created a beautiful flower by adding a petal each, on which was the name of a friend and why they are grateful for them.

Children wrote things such as this on their Friendship flower petals:

“My sister is loving”. 

“Mummy cooks for me”. 

“My friend is kind and helpful and makes me smile”. 

Sorry sand – The students trace ‘sorry’ in the sand and think about how Christians pray to God when they are sorry and with the other hand wipe the sand smooth so it is all fresh and new and what they were sorry for has been wiped away, the slate has been wiped clean. 

Fizzy forgiveness – This is where the students think about how they feel when someone is mean to them (sad) and by taking a fizzy tablet, dropping it into the water, they learn the importance of letting go of the sadness and watching it all dissolve and disappear. 

Being brave – The students find the first letter of their name and write down “Dear God help me to be brave when….. “

Some of the brave prayers were :

“Dear God, please help me to be brave when I am scared or sad.”

“Dear God, please help me to be brave in the dark.”

Helping hands – Thinking about kindness and ways to help others and writing ideas of ways to show kindness on a paper hand (helping hand) that they keep to remind themselves to be kind. 

The teachers said the Quiet Space was very timely as they were raising money for charity by wearing a loud tie or bright hair and imaginative hairstyles, and lots of noise and excitement. The teachers said it was lovely to calm down for half an hour to do this. 

PACE attended the Guernsey Youth, Children’s and Families Network which this time was kindly hosted by Vazon Elim Church. This is a get together with other youth, children’s and family workers across the island.

We were all treated to delicious pastries, muffins, fruit and more as we arrived.

We started our time with fellowship over breakfast and moved into a lovely time of worship led by Alex on guitar. 

Leigh-Ann shared with us some thoughts from the recent Elim Conference she had attended along with her team and people from other churches in Guernsey. She had been struck by a talk about busyness and turned our thoughts to how much we are doing in our week and how much is back to back allowing little space in between. We were challenged with thinking about as leaders in church ministry, when was the last time we were sat in the service with the congregation or took time to ensure our faith was being fed.

This opened up discussion about not becoming burnt out, also realising that God gives us the strength that we need for what we have to do. Discernment and wisdom from God is needed for us to know what to say yes or no to.

We finished with a time of prayer in small groups. It was a refreshing time and a reminder that we are not alone.

Please pray for us this week for the following:

• The OT and NT Mini courses currently running – for the presenters and children receiving these sessions
• Those presenting our Year 11 lessons on War this week
• Give thanks for all our volunteers and the hours they give to serving the schools of Guernsey alongside us
• All students and staff at our local schools

Last week, we set up a beautiful space at Blanchelande College for an Advent themed Prayer Space for the senior school students.

As Christmas carols play quietly in the background, the students enter a room filled with twinkling lights and seven prayer stations.

Here are some of the stations that we included:
There is a treasure box filled with little stars. As students think about the guiding star that guided the wise men to Jesus, they can keep a star to remember how God guides us in life and is always with us.

Gift tags are used for the student to think of their gift or talent, write it on a gift tag then stick them to present boxes to show how our gifts can help others. One student wrote that they were caring, thoughtful and kind and recognised how aspects of our personality are in fact gifts that can be used to bless others. 

Christmas baubles are decorated and written on to describe things they are grateful for then hung onto the Christmas tree. One student wrote that they had found a new love for singing. 

Thinking of Advent being a time of waiting, the student write on a paper clock what they are waiting for and then lay it in a manger as a sign that all these things are brought to God and we trust His timing. One example a student wrote was “For Jesus to come again”. 

Prayers were pinned to a map to pray for the world. One student wrote “I pray for those battling depression and that they know they’re not alone”.

The students loved the sessions and particular favourite stations were the stars and the baubles.

The leader of the sessions began with a snip and tell, where the students were asked to tell the Christmas story while the leader cuts away at paper which then reveals a nativity picture – they loved it!

We had a Emotional Learning Support Assistant visit and she was blown away by what she saw and absolutely loved it, she came to pick up ideas for things to do with her students and was so encouraged with the PACE Prayer Spaces and felt it would be of great benefit to the students.

Please continue to pray for the work. This week we’re having our lunch club Christmas parties, continuing Christmas in a Box lessons and catching up on lots of admin before the holidays! We ask for prayer for health for the team and energy to finish the term well.

We’ve been very busy this term with lots of different projects and lessons! Jo has written about a couple of them here so you can get an insight into what we are doing day to day in the schools of Guernsey.

Creation Lessons
We have enjoyed taking the Creation lesson into Year 1 classrooms across the island, this term. We introduce that we will be talking about what Christians believe about how the world was created which is right at the beginning of the Bible. 

We start by watching a beautiful video of stunning nature images from across this beautiful globe. The children love these and there are lots of “wow!” moments when they see pictures of the Northern lights or thunder storms, and lots of “cute!” moments with seeing baby animals and lots of giggles when they see funny animal pictures too.

The children then discuss what was their favourite photo and why. We talk about this beautiful world and pose the question “should people help to look after this wonderful world”? We then look at the Creation story with the use of picture boards to represent each day that was created. The day of rest is blank to illustrate that in our minds we can each think of something that we would do in the day of rest.

We ask the children what their favourite day was and why. We pose the question “could we remove a day and still have everything that we need”?

The children then enjoy making something from creation with playdough and they all share with the class what they have made and we talk about how they felt about their creation and how God feels about His creation.

A lovely conclusion to the lesson is the treasure box that we show the children. This is where we talk about God’s most precious creation that he loves so much and that we have it here in this treasure box. They come up to look inside and inside is a mirror showing them that they are God’s most precious creation.

The children conclude by discussing the importance of looking after our world and how we can do that.

Prayer Spaces
Prayer Spaces is when we take over a classroom or school library for a few days and have classes visiting us in that room to explore different ways to pray. We have several prayer stations set up where small groups of children visit each prayer station.

Examples of this include ‘prayer lilies’ where you write down a worry on a paper lily and once folded in a certain way and placed in a large dish of water, the lilies slowly open up, symbolic of us opening up to God and releasing our worries to him.

‘Sorry sand’ where each child has a tray of sand and writes or draws in the sand something they are sorry for, then wipes it away, smooths out the sand, showing how God forgives us and wipes the slate clean.

There are many more prayer stations that all show different ways to connect with God.

I love the prayer wall as it is so lovely to see what children write as a prayer to God. Examples of these prayers are – “thank you for being a Father to me” – “Thank you for the best gift ever, my life”. “Please look after my Gran in heaven”. 

A favourite is the prayer tent. A pop up tent with twinkly lights inside or a bubble tube. A chance to be still and quiet and pray in a relaxing space set apart from everything else.

Teachers love how calm it is and the children enjoy having a moment out of their busy day to reflect, think and pray.

Superhero Assembly

We have also been leading assemblies in Primary schools on the theme superheroes.

The children start with a quiz to see if they can guess the superhero from the emoji clues on screen. They tell us what their superpower would be if they were a superhero.

We then explore the idea that there is more to being a superhero such as being kind and caring and honest and brave.

We go into the story of David being chosen to be king with 9 volunteers to play Jesse and his sons. They learn that man looks on the outside but God looks on the inside. 

The children learn that there are lots of different kinds of superheroes, it is important not to judge others by the outside, and that we too can be Superheroes if we work on the person we are on the inside.

This week we are starting to deliver our Christmas in a Box lessons, visiting St Sampsons High for some lessons on Christian Views on War, visiting Amherst for a lesson on Jesus along with daily lunch clubs and a couple of assemblies. Please do keep these activities, the students, team and volunteers in your prayers this week.

This half term we have done 18 primary school Harvest assemblies.

We start with a welcome/introduction and a game.

In this game we have two teams of three children. They have to relay race to the bag opposite them, taking out one item at a time. They then dress one of the children as a farmer. The items are a hat, scarf, coat, gloves and wellies. We have deliberately mixed up the wellies and gloves so they don’t have matching pairs, on realising this they then decide whether they would like to share with the other team so they have matching pairs.

The game is great fun and the farmers look great dressed up by their farmer helpers.

We then talk about what harvest time is and the importance of sharing and giving to others. 

We lead into the Bible story about Elijah and the woman he met who didn’t have enough flour or oil, and how she did as he asked and made bread, and then there was always enough flour in the bowl and oil in the jar.

On concluding about the importance of sharing, we talk about how there are different ways of sharing. We can share a smile with someone. We can share our time. We reflect that at harvest time we are thankful for the food we have.

Our closing prayer sums up everything.

“Dear God, thank you for the food we have to eat. Thank you that we can smile and be kind. Please help us to share what we have with those around us. Amen.