Petra Institute has a long-standing partnership with Children Mission1 that spans 21 years. The ministry started because of the obedience of a South African farmer, Bernard Joubert2. Bernard and his wife, Chrismaré, attended a children’s ministry course in 1997 at Petra Institute.
After the fall of Communism in 1990, a number of South African congregations became involved in ministry in various Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. Bernard accompanied one of these groups to Ukraine after completing the course at Petra Institute. During the conference, he invited people interested in learning how to lead a child to Christ, to attend a short workshop on the Friday afternoon. He shared the following:
“As we went to Ukraine, I was not sure if there would be a need for children’s ministry training. The turnout that Friday afternoon partly answered that question as 50 people attended! During this time in Ukraine, God gave me a 5-year plan in order to establish a ministry among Ukrainians and take it to where they could function independently. “Back home I spoke to several groups. First, I asked the CIS Hub if we could use their administrative channels as they had an office in Ukraine and could provide invitation letters for our visas. Secondly, I negotiated with Petra Institute for permission to translate the training material into Russian and to bring people from Ukraine for training at the institute.”2
Equipping a young generation of pioneers
In 1999, Bernard brought four young Ukrainians to South Africa to be trained at Petra Institute, of which Lyuda Bryn, an English teacher, was part of the group. After completing the training, Bernard and his family went to Ukraine for three months and together with Lyuda and the others, started training in various areas in Ukraine and sharing with pastors the strategic importance of effective children’s ministry. Over time, the work expanded to Armenia, Moldova, Russia, Estonia, Georgia and Kazakhstan.
Lyuda was also trained as mentor by Petra Institute, and Petra Institute training staff regularly worked with Lyuda and her team to give further training to tutors and mentors of the respective countries. Today, Lyuda is the International Coordinator of Children Mission. The vision of the ministry is that every child in the CIS countries will have the opportunity to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. They do this through training adults that work with children.
“We now have self-sustained ministries without any support from outside, run by local people in their local language, in Ukraine, Russia and Armenia. That means there are national coordinators, local teams of mentors with their own teams of tutors, some full-time, and some volunteers – in total about 80 people – a number that grows annually. And I don’t go to those countries anymore to train tutors as they now train their own tutors and children’s workers.”
Changing lives, culture and perceptions
“What difference does your work make in the lives of children?” we asked.She replied, “We see that those we train, start practising what they learn first with their own kids. While presenting a course, there are many testimonies about their own families. Many moms come back saying they applied what they have learned with their children and then lead them to the Lord. We often hear that children actually accepted Christ as Saviour through this while their parents were trained.”Lyuda then told the following story: “At a conference in 2017, one of the pastors approached me and said, ‘I was at your seminar and I agree with you, but can you tell me or show me the fruit of your ministry, that it really works?’’I told him, ‘’Do you remember that young man on the stage this morning, who is so excited about Jesus and about evangelising young people and using creative ways to do it?’’“He said, ‘’I was very impressed with him.’’I said, ‘’Well, he grew up in a church where all the children’s workers were trained in the first year we started. He attended children’s ministry since he was six years old and as a teenager started to minister in our children’s camps. He later felt the Lord has called him to work full-time with young people in creative ministry, reaching out to non-believers at stadiums through bands and dramas.’’The pastor was convinced!”3
How can we take hands with your church or organisation?
Petra Institute can assist your organisation or church to understand God’s heart for children. We listen to your unique needs and then we work out a strategy that fits your vision. A key element in the strategy is to train a core group of leaders to do relational children’s ministry in their own context and from this group of leaders, a group is identified that are trained to train trainers.Over the years, Petra Institute has developed active partnerships in 29 countries, with equipped trainers in 40 countries and trained children’s workers in more than 60 countries.
For more information, contact us at: info@petra.co.za
References:
1 www.childrenmission.net
2 Bernard Joubert is the current the Managing Director of Petra Institute
3 Fanie Richter & Laetitia Bull, Destined to be Change-agents in the Kingdom – ‘ordinary’ people serving significantly, CLF, Wellington, South Africa, First edition, 2020.
4 Ibid.
