Lots of you will have met Rachel by now, who we are employing for one day a week to help out with our Schools and Families work.  This is really exciting for a number of reasons: she is proving to be a great addition to the Little Fishes team, is supporting Sunday Funtime through preparing resources and is also doing something we’ve been wanting to do for a while now, start up an after-school club.


Searchlights has been running for 3 weeks now and it’s a great place to be on a Monday afternoon from 3.15-4.30pm, whether you’re a    primary-school-aged child, or one of the team!  For this first half term we are asking the question “Who can follow Jesus?” and have so far looked at characters like Peter, Levi the tax collector and the demon-possessed man.


Each week begins with snack and a game that helps us start thinking about the theme for the day.  We then have an active team game before settling down to ‘explore the Bible’.  This is followed by a craft activity and then a final game before we go home. 


It has been really encouraging to see an average of 13 children coming along each week from a variety of schools in Clacton.  They are a great group, spanning the whole of primary school age, who are already   beginning to build new friendships, often with children who go to       different schools from their own. 


Rachel organises us all brilliantly and each week - various members of the team run either snack, a game or the craft.  On the 31st October we are looking forward to running a family Light Party with the Rockets (after-school club) team from St Paul’s church.  It’s another really good   opportunity to reach children and their parents and to work with people from another church – new people bring new ideas! 


So let’s praise God for enabling this new and exciting venture with all the possibilities it promises, through the provision of Rachel.  Thank you to you too, dear church family for all your prayer support,           encouragement and interest in  Searchlights.  Thanks also to the Searchlights helpers who are doing an amazing job – it really is a great team effort!                                                                         Hannah