January 2015 – Imagine trying to teach a class with only one small textbook. There is no instructor’s manual, no teacher’s notes…and it’s a subject you don’t know a lot about.
How well could you teach your students? Could you answer their questions?
This is the situation faced by Sunday school teachers throughout Southeast Asia. Many of them are new Christians who grew up in Buddhist homes, so they have no past experience with Sunday school to draw upon. Aside from A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories, translated into their languages by LHF, they have no Lutheran materials they can use to teach children about Jesus.
“Lutherans in Southeast Asia are first-generations Lutherans. Everything is new to them,” explains Rev. Ted NaThalang, LHF coordinator for Southeast Asia projects. “They came to us and asked what LHF could do, because they weren’t sure how to best teach their children.”
LHF was able to answer their call for help through the faithful support of children who adopted LHF’s “Let the Children Come to Me” project. With their gifts, LHF has developed a 400-page Sunday school teachers’ guide that builds a year-long Sunday school program based on the Child’s Garden storybook.
“We hope to have the curriculum field tested this spring and then have it ready for wider distribution this fall,” said Rev. NaThalang. “I expect that this program will probably also be used by non-Lutherans, because there is nothing else like it in Southeast Asia.”
Only with your help can this important work continue. Prayerfully consider how you can help support LHF projects.
