Overcoming the Challenges of Running a Children's Ministry Program in Panama

We ran the children's program from the Kids' Club at a hotel.

This time the objective of our mission trip was to lend support to couples taking part in an intensive course helping them to improve, and for some to rescue, their relationships and marriages.

Because the sponsoring church would like the participating couples to focus on this three day course with minimal interruption, it also provided a children's ministry program simultaneously when the parents were at their workshops.









Our mission team is made up of nine people with specific responsibilities for each member.
This three day course took place during an important Panamanian national holiday at a hotel about half an hour drive from where we were.


I always enjoy working with young people and children's ministry.  I have led many children's programs before. However, we have had a few challenges this time.

The children in the program ranged from 2 - 16 years old.

Our first challenge - Finding a proper place to run our children's program. The local church encountered many issues of getting a space for the program and there were a lot of negotiations and prayers before we finally secured a space with reasonable cost at this hotel.

We ran our three day programs out of the resort's Kid's Club house.

We prepared a lot of interesting activities for the children.

Second challenge - The length of the day was long as the parents were in class from 9a.m, until 9:30p.m. with an hour each for lunch and dinner.

This meant that we needed to run our programs and looked after the children for a 12 hour period each day. ( Most children's ministry program is between 2-4 hours in length).

We divided the children into 2 groups - one was the five years and older group.

We needed to provide activities that would hold the children's attention and sustain their interests.

The younger group was for children 4 years and younger,

The third challenge was the wide range in the children's ages. They were from two  to sixteen years old.

 Due to our limited manpower,  I was a little worried that if the number of children exceed twenty, we might have a hard time handling it/

A painting activity for the kids.

When we were preparing for the children's program, we considered the diversity of the children's age, interests, their abilities, languages as well as their various attention span.

My husband and I packed three full  size suitcases of teaching materials and supplies with us on this trip.

Painting was an activity enjoyed by both young  and older children.

I was glad we did! These materials helped to capture and sustain the children's interest and attention at the camp.

The children come from different background &speak a number of languages.

After the first hour of the program on the first day,  we discovered another challenge which we did not foresee: the diverse languages spoken by these children.

Looking after all the children was a joint effort from both the local church & mission team..

We needed to use English, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka as some children could only understand and speak only one of the five.

To overcome these challenges, we divided the children into two age groups. The preschoolers in one group being looked after by the local team members .

Three people from the Toronto team looked after children aged five and above.

We prepared bible story P.T.T. in Spanish and English

I was glad that we had some preparation time in Panama revising and modifying our programs and materials.

We had prepared the bible stories with lots of pictures and with easy to understand Spanish and English subtitles. We also prepared and learned all the bible songs and  memory verses in Spanish.

Prior to our departure for Panama, we shopped carefully and selected quite a number of age appropriate games, puzzles and crafts for the children so that they would have some fun structured play time throughout the 12 hour day with us.

While the weather was hot and the beach was close by, it was a challenge keeping the children interested in the bible lessons and other activities.

We thanked God and were grateful that the three days of programs went smoothly and all the children had fun and were looked after safely.

I learned that children enjoy doing puzzles.

Another thing I did learn from this experience was how much kids love doing puzzles.

These kids completed a Noah's Ark puzzle together. 

I need to look for some good puzzles and bring them with me next time for the children when I go on mission trips.

A local parent volunteer came and helped us.

We had Amy, one of the mothers helping us as well.

Pastor C. looked after the younger children on the beach.

On the last day of the program, we took the children to the beach.

We enjoyed a pony ride on the beach!

We took some kids for a pony ride on the beach. That was fun!

Though it was a challenge teaching this group of kids, our team worked together well and were able to overcome the difficult issues and succeeded in explaining our messages to the children who evidently enjoyed the time with us.




R.T.
Rio Hato
Panama