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During March, Lancaster Mennonite (LM) School held World Changer Week, where students of all levels participated in acts of service for the community throughout the week. Serving others is one of the ways LM expresses their core values of Seeking Jesus Wholeheartedly and Living Compassionately. It teaches students a Christ-centered, holistic way to serve others like Jesus.
1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th graders spent time packaging school kits for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). 1st and 2nd graders were paired up with a High School Buddy in 11th grade and worked together to make the kits while 3rd and 5th graders packed them individually. Over 450 school kits were assembled and students prayed together for the children who would receive them.
7th and 9th graders went off campus to the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) East Coast Material Resources Center, Ephrata. Students packed school kits and dignity kits, broke down books for recycling, and received tours to learn more about the work of MCC.
Rebecca Burkholder, MCC US Director of International Program, with school children who attend a school run by MCC partner, Association for the Promotion of Education (APE) in North Kanem, Chad.
As students were packing and preparing kits for MCC, LM teacher Sheri Wenger received a message from her friend Rebecca Burkholder, MCC U.S. Director of International Program who was currently in Chad.
The purpose of Rebecca’s trip was to visit MCC’s projects and to support and encourage MCC’s staff and partners.
Rebecca shared, “I visited three schools in the North Kanem area, which is in the Sahel region, near the Sahara Desert. The children walk to school. Some may come by donkey or even camel.”
“The children were very engaged in their education. When we visited one school, they ran to the blackboard to show us some of the things they were learning. They were having an English lesson, so they were reciting a poem, and they were reading off the blackboard.”
“Overall, the adults we talked to were so thankful for a visit because they live remotely enough that they say, ‘When you come, we know people have not forgotten us.’ They like the connection with people from other places in Chad and around the world.”
The school kits, which include a drawstring bag, paper notebooks, pencils, pencil sharpener, pens, ruler, eraser, and colored pencils, are important because these educational supplies are hard to find in Chad, and they are very expensive to purchase locally. Parents could not purchase the kit supplies. The school room Rebecca visited had a blackboard and chalk, but there was a lack of basic supplies. Kits come in cloth drawstring bags, sewn by volunteers in the U.S. and Canada, which are commonly reused as backpacks.
School children who attend a school run by MCC partner, Association for the Promotion of Education (APE) in North Kanem, Chad.
When Rebecca was in Chad, she heard that MCC’s shipment of kits was on its way. It was scheduled to arrive on April 8. The shipment contained 1,000 dignity kits and 1,320 school kits, all of which were donated by volunteers.
MCC needs volunteers to donate complete school kits or school kit contents. It’s a lot of work to assemble the kits and send thousands around the world every year. For a full list of MCC school kit contents, visit mcc.org/kits/school.
Rebecca reiterates, “When students, like the ones at Lancaster Mennonite, volunteer to pack kits, it’s a connection to other children in the world. They are supporting children and families who don’t have access to some of the things that we have access to. Children in other places will be told these things are coming from other people and children who care about them. The children are expanding each other’s worldview.”
During World Changer Week, LM high school teacher Sheri Wenger shared with Lancaster Mennonite students who volunteered with MCC at the Material Resource Center. She told them about the life of students living in Chad from what Rebecca shared with her and the positive impact the school kits they were sending were having on other kids around the world.
It was exciting to see the joy students experienced serving and caring for others around the world.
