Need A Camel?
Call Pastor Shirley!
Need a palm tree, a manger scene, a backdrop that looks like Bethlehem, or almost anything else you can imagine? Call Pastor Shirley! She’s got ‘em all.
Pastor Shirley Allen, along with Pastor Wendy Witas and the rest of the children’s ministry team have collected camels and sheep and a thousand other resources that every Sabbath School leader dreams of having. Those dreams can now come true at the Children's Ministry Lending Library!
“We have over 500 books, die-cuts, DVDs, and VBS resource kits available to help grow your ministry. In addition, there are large animals for loaning to help create wonderful environments for themed learning. The Oregon Conference Children's Ministries department is pleased to provide this service, which depends on your commitment to preserve and return these materials in good condition, so that others may utilize them as well," said Pastor Shirley.
The standard “Lending Fee” is $20, and that makes it possible for all the items to be in good repair (yes, the donkey’s ear has been re-attached), on the right shelf, and ready for you to use.
The library is in several different locations around the Gladstone campus, but everything there is available to provide realism in your ministry to kids. One room is packed with green – trees, branches, leaves, flowers, and grass like a small Garden of Eden.
Another room is the “Zoo.” Lions, tigers, bears, donkeys, horses, and yes, camels, fill the shelves far beyond overflowing.
‘I think the most important things we have are the backdrops,” says Pastor Shirley, children’s ministries director. “Especially the ones of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Eden, and other Bible locations. People love them, especially the cloth ones that can be hung easily on the wall."
Other shelves are home to baskets, blankets, hats, shoes, Bible costumes, and scores of puppets. It’s taken thousands of hours to assemble, catalogue, clean, and stash everything, hours given by people who love children and who can see ministry possibilities in a multi-colored hula hoop.
One wall holds up a stack of sixteen giant plastic containers, each filled with treasures donated by a community friend who spent her life teaching children about God. Resources that will soon be available for you to borrow from the Lending Library.
Sabbath School leaders seem to be gifted with an incredible creativity enabling them to take something that seems useless to others and turn it into something that helps children fall in love with God. For them, this collection is a gold mine! Every shelf, every container, every costume, every stuffed animal is an answer to a prayer, something that can be turned into an illustration that will help children see God more clearly.
Need a camel?
Oregon Conference has several.
Click on any of the photos below to see a larger version.
