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 A mother was given a playpen on the arrival or her fourth child. She wrote back to say, “Thank you so much for the pen. It’s wonderful- I sit in it every afternoon and read. The children can’t get near me.”
Most parents can empathise with this mother, but deep down we know it wouldn’t work. And certainly it wouldn’t work for our Children’s Pastor, Anne Johnson. The names of different children’s interest and age groups tumble over each other at Gold Coast Christian Family, and each needs and receives hands-on attention. On Sunday morning alone there is Creche, as well as GummiBears, JelliTots, JellyBeans, Kidz Church and D-Force.
Aside from Sunday, there’s the Honey Jumbles playgroup, Design teams, a Special Events team and the SNAP team (Special Needs Assistant Programme). Add to those the Puppet Patch team and the Alive Learning Centre that has been developed and run for tutoring children in literacy/ numeracy, and it becomes obvious you could never hide in a playpen and retain your sanity. (Mind you, there are occasions when Anne and many others seem to be touched by a little madness when children are bouncing around in a mini-train, dizzy and laughing on a cup-and saucer ride or cuddling pigs and chickens from Old MacDonald’s farm!)
Someone has said that ‘child by child, we build our nation’ and it might be said that at GCCF, child by child, we build our church. But the emphasis which Anne and her large band of devoted workers have adopted is the effort to provide the range and depth of programmes which will build and cater for the individual needs of each child. And there is room for your child to grow and develop his or her potential in this environment.
But don’t look for Anne and her co-workers in the comfortable seclusion of the playpen- you’ll find them with the children very time. |
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