Patvērums: April 2006

Patvērums

The Salvation Army opened the Patvērums Childrens Day Centre in March 2002 to provide a safe environment for underprivileged children from the local community in Riga.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Swings and Roundabouts!

This week has been a strange one! At the moment we are struggling to have more than 6 or 7 children come in 1 day that are not part of the +14 group and this has led to some quiet and long days. It's frustrating when we have 18 children on the books but only a few are coming and that attendance is slowing dropping so we've sprung into action!!

This afternoon Dace phoned one of our 'missing' children to see where they are and now we know that he will not be coming again until the autumn! We've had another mum pop into see us today and her youngest son has not been for a long time so we've talk and found out why. Hopefully he'll be back soon. We know that one older boy is attending less and less as his home life has improved (which is GREAT) and tomorrow we’re making a home visit to find out why a brother and sister aren't attending anymore. As for the rest we'll just have to wait and see!

SO...this all means we are probably creating a few new spaces. The next job is filling them and so we've started getting in touch with our various outside contacts to make them aware that we have free places and hopefully we'll soon be busy again! The flipside of this is that at the moment the +14 group is really active, we've currently got 10 girls aged between 14-17 years signed up! This afternoon 8 of them have gone to the cinema and they are all coming more and more regularly.

It's all a bit confusing and frustrating! The joys of children and youth work! ;-)

posted by Patverums Childrens Day Centre @ 4:35 pm 0 comments

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Easter at Patvērums

This Easter we had a full program organsied for the children. We had a different activity each day and much to the children annoyance we turned off the computers!

As you will see from the photo's we had a great time and were very busy making different crafts, colouring, playing and much more.

Every year we give the children a small gift. This year we gave them a small bag of sweets and a card that explained how each of the sweets represented a different part of the Easter story.

Here's the poem (in English!):
Red is for the blood He gave,
Green is for the grass He made,
Yellow is for the sun so bright,
Orange is for the edge of night.
Black is for the sins that were made,
White is for the grace He gave.
Purple is for the hour of sorrow,
Pink is for the new tomorrow.
A bag full of jelly beans, Colourful and sweet, Is a Prayer...is a Promise... Is an Easter treat!

We hope and pray that this year the children learnt more about & experienced the joy of Easter!

Photos: Egg colouring and making paper tulips, Wall display showing eggs having from a tree, 'Jesus Is Alive' written in 8 of the many different languages spoken by members of The Salvation Army in Latvia, fun and games on Thursday afternoon, and growing onions(!?!).

posted by Patverums Childrens Day Centre @ 2:53 pm 0 comments

Friday, April 07, 2006

Our small group

Every Friday since September as a staff we have met in my flat to have quality time together away from the centre. We decided to read the book 'Purpose Driven Life'. It is in Latvian and English and each week we read one chapter before meeting and then spend an hour sharing our thoughts, asking questions and helping each other in our faith.

When Inga left I was concerned about what would have to this time as it was proving to be a really special hour in all of our weeks but I knew we just had to trust that God would know best.

Then when Vineta joined us I was worried as to how she would feel about it, as we know very little about what faith she has I didn't know if she'd be happy to join us. The last 2 Friday's since she arrived we haven't meet as I felt it was important to give her time to settle in so today was our first small group.

I think I can say it went well! Before we started I tried to make her feel 'at home' and she seemed to be. Everyone was sensitive as we talked and she was keen to join in.

It's great to see God's work in action, how when we trust Him to know what's best He shows us that He does!! I'm so pleased that I'm able to offer this time to the staff to be able to stop and thinking about their relationship with God and what it is He has in store for them. A great way to end the working week!

posted by Patverums Childrens Day Centre @ 2:43 pm 0 comments

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Name: Patverums Childrens Day Centre
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