Chapter Eleven: Kids Kids KIDS

My days at Green Acre have been flying by, yet at a similar time, I swear I have been here for four years already. It has been exactly 78 days that I have been living here. That's a long time (For me...)! Yesterday was the first time in that time that I really got to outreach into the community and put all I have learned about the Faith to test. We (the six youth) and a family from the Eliot community drove up  about an hours drive to Portland, Maine, to help out with the Portland community. There is a new children's class and Junior Youth Group that we were asked to help with, and we happily accepted!
To those who do not know what children's classes and JY consist of...let me try to explain as best that I know it. Children's classes are for children ages 5-10 (I think?) and JY is for ages 11-14. Both of these seek to instill spiritual and moral values that I would venture to say the majority of the world and religions believe. As teachers, we hope to instill virtues such as truthfulness, compassion, patience, love of God, patience, etc. We aim for intellectual and spiritual excellence, whilst combining it with recreation (we love to play games!), and service in one's community. I have never done a children's class, so I cannot speak for that, but the format of the few JY classes I have done have begun with some sort of fun game (Concentration, human knot, really anything fun and bonding), then we go through the Junior Youth book, which brings up stories and situations that enable the youth to think about spiritual solutions to any situation. There are then a series of questions and activities that we all work on together. After the book (about a half hour per lesson), we play more games. We also plan trips out into the community that can really consist of anything the kids are interested in doing, whether it be a beach cleanup, visiting a nursing home, having a bake sale for charity, etc.
Junior Youth and Children's Classes are not indoctrination of Baha'i beliefs, but there are stories of Abdu'l Baha in the books, simply because we believe Abdu'l Baha to be a perfect exemplar of the virtues of God, and we want children to be able to see a person exemplifying these virtues. We hope through these classes that we can introduce a new generation bursting with the virtues of God, no matter their race, religion, ethnicity, or gender :)
So Jorgi, Will and I animated the Junior Youth Group, we were able to go upstairs and meet the children in the Children's class for snack time. It was chaos, kids everywhere, everyone talking...but it was amazing to feel the joy these children felt. You could just feel the happiness they had for us being there. We eventually wandered outside and ran and played soccer and piggyback rides, and laughed and laughed and laughed. It was such a beautiful connection that we were able to make with these children, and only in a few short hours. After some hesitation, I ended up giving my camera to a few of the youth and children (yes, I cannot believe it!) and I am so glad I did. They took some beautiful pictures :)
I was so touched by these children, as I always am impacted when I am around children. They make me feel so real, so pure. They have not let the dust of the world cloud their beings yet, so they are full of energy and raw joy. Their happiness infects me, and makes me wonder why we cannot be all so simply happy. So why can't we?

Taken by the children (and edited by me!):

These next few were taken by me: