Different, Yet the Same
A Children’s Message for Missions Emphasis

Resources: Your favorite food (something that can be easily shared with the children, like popcorn)

Share your favorite food with the children. As you are eating talk about why this is your favorite food and how long you’ve liked it, etc. Now ask the children to tell you their favorite food. (Get ready for lots of talk!) Take note of any favorite foods in common. Make sure you point out the sameness and differences.

Now ask the children what they think the favorite foods are for children in Japan? South America? Uganda? Korea? In Choctaw Presbytery? (Be prepared for a variety of responses….confusion, guesses, maybe some correct answers!)

Well, did you know that children in Japan love MacDonald’s hamburger and French Fries? In Colombia, South American children slurp up ice cream? Did you know that Native American kids just gobble up pizza?

But in Japan, children also eat okonomiyaki (Japanese pizza), tempura, and yakitori. Children in Korea eat lots of different kinds of kimchi, mandu (dumpling), and sundae (Korean sausage). In South America kids eat arepas (which is a corn patty similar to a thick tortilla), cabbage slaw, plantains (a type of banana) and tasty flan (custard pudding). In Uganda kids eat lots of sweet potatoes and corn, as well as fufu (which is a dumpling made out of a root vegetable called cassava). In Choctaw Presbytery the kids just love fry bread which they use to make a kind of taco with beans and other taco fixings. Delicious!

So you see…kids all over the world are not so different from us, right? Let’s pray:

Dear God, thank you for making us all different, yet the same. Even though we may be from different countries, or from different schools, even though we may come from different families, help us to remember that you love us all and that you want us to love others the same way. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.