In JIMS (Jesus in Middle School), middle school students get to have a class that is designed just for fun, fellowship, and faith. It’s a wonderful space for middle school students to meet together and do monthly projects that allow them to explore various aspects of life with God.
This April, students had service as their monthly challenge. They were asked to search and find a story about Jesus serving others and then to use an hour to reproduce that service in their local context. In short, they had the chance to practice discipleship together!
Here is what just a few of them shared:
For the service project, I chose the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. (found in Mark 14: 13-21). Jesus took the food he had and gave it to those in need of it. This is one of my favorite miracles Jesus preformed! I recreated this act of service by going to the store with my mom and buying food for a local organization call the Norcross Co Op! This organization helps those in need by providing them with food and other necessities so they can have what they need. After we bought the food, we took it to the drop off location to be donated! I also donated some of my money to pay for some of the food we gave! This was a great opportunity for me to help serve my community like Jesus did!
Similarly to Jesus, I helped someone, but instead of disciples, I helped my parents. This is because they do a lot for me, and I sometimes don’t help as much as I should. This is why, I devoted an hour to help them with whatever.
On Thursday of last week I took my horse to the vet because he was having some pain in his back….I am not able to ride him anymore due to his back but I still go out and see him almost everyday to spend time with him and groom him. The parable of the lost sheep reminds me of my situation. This story in the Bible is about the shepherd leaving his flock to find the missing sheep. I did the same thing I rearranged my schedule to go help my horse.
This [Mark 10:21] is talking about giving to the poor so I went to someone who looked in need and gave him 5 dollars.
[From Mark 10:45] I decided to help my neighbors who have a son with a brain tumor to try and make his life brighter by playing with him and talking about what its like to be different then some people and we talked about our heads because I have two brain cysts on my temporal lobes so I know how scared he is and the amount of stress they cause and we talked for about an hour to try and find ways not to think about it and tell god it is what makes us special and not matter what he will save us and do not fear what he has in store for us. This was very life changing for me to be able to talk to him and become friends.
I chose do the Bible story where Jesus feeds the 5,000 fish and bread. I helped make my family dinner. In fact, I had a tuna hamburger (fish and bread)! Granted, my family only consists of myself and my parents, so not quite 5,000.
For my project, let me give a little bit of background. My family is from India. My parents and my relatives have family in India. In India, COVID-19 is destroying the country. About 3000 people die a day, and the hospitals have run out of ventilators (objects that help people breathe.) So, I found an organization called Give India. Give India is a certified organization that raises money to help buy equipment to save lives. I am currently in the process of donating money to this charity. That is the hour project that I did to help serve others.
In John 13: 1-17, after Jesus and his disciples had ate the last supper, Jesus served them by washing their feet as a symbol of love and humility. Since it would be weird to wash people’s feet nowadays, I decided to go around my neighborhood and ask people if they needed a car wash! some people said yes, so me and my siblings washed people’s cars. it was really fun to do it with others and to see people’s reactions to their clean cars! it was also really nice to serve other people, just like Jesus did.
I chose to give my sister a shower since she had surgery. Much like how Jesus washed his disciple’s feet in John 13:15. I wanted to help her because she has helped me in the past by helping raise me when I was younger and we went to my dad’s house.
In Matthew 14:14 Jesus “had compassion on them and healed the sick”. A friend of my big sister has come down with unknown disorders that make it hard for her to eat among other things. Her Mom unfortunately lost her job due to Covid and is trying to pay her daughters medical bills. My sisters and I started a Gofundme page and have been recruiting our friends and family to help her pay the bills. Thankfully with support and prayers she finally found a doctor in Dallas TX that is helping her. We have raised almost $6,700 of our $10,000 goal. My sisters and I give updates on my Mom’s facebook page. We have spent a lot more time than 1hr raising the funds!
