By Sandra el Hajj
As Christians, we hear and talk so much about forgiveness and the necessity to forgive. What sounds good in theory often feels insurmountable when you’ve been deceived by your supposed-best friend, abused by your parent, or lied to by your child. Yet conveying the concept of forgiveness to the most hurt, the most vulnerable of children, is something else.
Over 3 days at a church camp, 50 children split into two shifts and carefully listened to Bible stories on forgiveness in a well-planned program: the story of the adulteress in John 8, the Parable of the unforgiving debtor in Matthew 18, as well as Peter’s question on forgiveness. Although there were some disagreements with the idea of forgiveness at first, participation and interest carried the day. Children asked questions, engaged in active conversations, shared their own life experiences, sang along to hymns, played games, and designed crafts to represent their understanding of forgiveness.