On Thursday, children from our Kids Clubs marched around Trench Town to celebrate the Christmas story with their community.

Straight after the pageant we gave awards to those children and clubs that have got the most “values stars” over the last 3 months of Kids Clubs.

Our club values are:

People matter; so respect everyone

We’re a team; so work together

Our actions count: so make good choices

It was a joy to see the children and team putting these values into practice through the event, and the community’s warm response to them. A highlight was that police not only volunteered to be one of the inns along the way, but even sent three officers on the march with us.

During the Pageant, a leader had to intervene at one point when a child stepped on one of the Angel’s feet, and the Angel reacted by grabbing a nail that was lying on the ground and preparing to stab the child who did it!!

At the awards giving, the boy who received an award for the most values stars (setting a new record) had also been sent home for trying to stab another child only a few weeks ago.

When you are not often treated with respect, or encouraged to work together with others, or guided in making good choices, it takes a while to learn how to do these things.

Values like these are far too absent in the world, but Christmas reminds that God has bought peace and joy, through Christ, to that very same world. As this boy received his award and the other children cheered loudly, he smiled from somewhere deep inside. (We were all delighted, and a bit surprised, that he had done so well).

These children, and their community, are learning a new way of being through what God is doing here; and to me that sounds a lot like good news of great joy for all mankind.