THROUGH A NEW MINISTRY known as “Called to be Teachers,” SIM’s Karen Carlson works with a team of four Peruvians, helping teachers not only cover a lesson well but also befriend a child.

As in many developing countries, Peru has a high percentage of children and, according to UNICEF, 60 percent of them live in poverty. Karen estimates that in Peru one child a day commits suicide. She related a recent case in which a 9-year-old hung himself with a towel. “Many children here live with abuse, neglect and crisis,” she says.

Karen also teaches about the pastoral care of children. She explains that often the Bible is taught in an isolated way, and they do not learn how to apply biblical truths. “We want teachers to be more than teachers,” she explains, “to know how to befriend and listen to children so they will trust them with the crises in their lives.”

Early on in her time in Peru, Karen saw the need for better Sunday school and Vacation Bible School (VBS) material. “We noticed that this was often written for church kids with a Bible background. yet I was working in a place called the ‘Street of the Seven Stabbings’.” She tried to create material that would be attractive and understandable. Titles such as “Jesus, My Powerful Friend,” touch the real needs of a child.

Her co-writer, Nimia Valladares, helped shape the material and the ministry. Karen discipled her when she was new in her faith, and now they have been working together for 25 years. “We couldn’t just say, ‘Jesus loves you,’” Karen explains. “Nimia grew up with family troubles. So she challenged us to write lessons that would convince and comfort a child.

“She is a real diamond in the rough. She makes lessons more relevant. I had been in Sunday school since I was four, and so I just accepted everything. She questioned everything. The kids identify with her doubts and hurts.”

Nimia has written more than 100 songs that go with most of the material. The songs reach kids’ hearts and are full of meaning. Titles include: “I Put My Life in your Hands, Lord” and “I Trust you with My Happiness and Sadness.” Once they were singing in a small rural church, when several of the children started crying, then asked, “Is this really true? Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“Kids respond because they know they have an emptiness in their lives that needs to be filled by God,” Karen says.

A message of hope and love

At a teachers’ academy, a woman told how her alcoholic father had raped her, but she became a Christian through Sunday school. She came to the training to learn how to teach children because, “there are children around me suffering who need a message of hope and love.”

One often-used illustration starts by asking the training class who would like a nice chicken sandwich. The eager volunteer comes forward only to discover a raw chicken in-between two slices of bread. The expression on their face brings home the point! Just as the volunteer comes with expectations that they can eat the sandwich, children come with great expectations that they will have a good class.

“Sometimes the teacher doesn’t prepare well, and I want to show them that it is like giving children raw chicken. It’s dangerous spiritually,” Karen says, adding that the ministry’s motto is “investing your life for eternity.”

Karen and Nimia worked for seven years to create a complete curriculum on the attributes of God for preschool and school-age children. They chose this topic after reading the A.W. Tozer quote, “The most important facet of your Christian life is your concept of God.”

The “My Wonderful God” lesson set offers more than 300 full-page pictures, original songs with motions, hand-outs, activity sheets, and ideas for games that go with the purpose of the lesson — enough material for eight months to a year of Sunday school classes. And “Called to be Teachers” offers a five-hour training for the churches that purchase the lessons.

“Peruvian children, because of abuse and neglect, grow up with a wrong concept of God. They need to experience his love and care,” Karen says.