Guess who's coming to church?

SUGAR GROVE, Pa. — When Sugar Grove FMC followed its Sunday services with a society meeting/potluck, they invited about 30 special guests — kids crafted from cardboard, dressed with love, and each representing a real child sponsored by a congregation member through International Child Care Ministries.

“We measured several Sunday school kids, tracing their outlines on large pieces of butcher paper,” says Sharon Hughes, Pastor Billy’s wife. Families who sponsor children (some with more than one) took these silhouettes home to create the cardboard kids, adding hair and clothing representative of the country where they live. The sponsor families also prepared written information about each child.

The cardboard kids were invited onto the platform (below) so they could be prayed over. “One little boy said we should lay hands on them,” Sharon recalls. “So we did!”

During the potluck, each cardboard kid had an assigned seat at one of the tables. Even now, the cardboard kids turn up sporadically around the church — sometimes in a Sunday school class, a meeting, a banquet, a hallway … “It keeps them in front of us,” says Hughes.

That’s important because the Free Methodist child sponsorship ministry is always in need of new individuals and families willing to spend just $21/month to provide an education, meals and medical care for a needy child. International Child Care Ministries currently cares for children in 26 countries. For more information, see the related story in the Social Holiness section of this issue’s “Deeper Path” and visit www.childcareministries.org.