Live Like Jesus

Editor’s note: In June, Messiah St. Charles Church and CFNA collaborated to bring kids from different backgrounds together for Messiah’s VBS program. Jennifer Prophete, Director of The Hopeful Neighborhood Project, shares details about the process of achieving this goal. 

At Messiah Weldon Springs, we were excited to welcome hundreds of children from our community to learn how to “Live Like Jesus!” – this year’s VBS mission. In an effort to expose children to different cultures, languages, and backgrounds, Messiah worked alongside Christian Friends of New Americans (CFNA). 

The first three VBS sessions began with videos of refugee families that Messiah and CFNA staff created together. From here, the students went to work each day to create friendship bracelets for the CFNA children who planned to visit at the end of the program. On the final day of VBS, students from CFNA came to spend time with Messiah’s children. They introduced themselves and played games to get to know each other, and at the end of the day, Messiah celebrated by giving CFNA children bikes, helmets and locks that had been collected throughout the week.

One Messiah student expressed how fun this project was by exclaiming, “It was a fun learning experience that will help everyone in life. The videos were nice, and I could tell a lot of work was put into it. I learned that these kids are normal and deserve to be treated just like anyone else. I’m very glad I went.”

Over $700 and 35 bikes were collected during this program. More importantly, Messiah kids learned the importance of befriending people who look and share different life stories than their own – the best way to “Live Like Jesus!”

By Jennifer Prophete