Nau mai, haere mai! Welcome to Whiria Kids!

Nau mai, haere mai! Welcome to Whiria Kids!

At Arotahi (New Zealand Baptist Mis­sion­ary Society), we believe that being woven together in mission is part of God’s heart for each of us. No matter how young, we can all con­tribute; each prayer, expres­sion of aroha (love), and small step is pre­cious. Through our new children’s pro­gramme, Whiria Kids, we hope our tamariki can con­tinue to see how they can be part of God’s mahi.

But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to every­one I send you to and say what­ever I command you. Jere­miah 1:7

Driven by local churches’ children’s pro­grammes and resourced through videos, projects, website content and infor­ma­tion (fronted by some of our Baptist young adults), we hope to help inspire the next mis­sional gen­er­a­tion. We’ll also provide resources online for at-home whānau engagement.

What does Whiria mean?
Whiri – verb – plait, twist (a rope where the base and sides of a kete join)
Whiri – noun – a flock (of birds)
Whiria te tāngata – Weave the people together

Like a gath­ered flock of birds, we are indi­vid­u­als who are part of the whole family of Christ.

We’ll have an empha­sis on migrat­ing birds from Aotearoa, New Zealand and other nations. For a season, these birds are in Aotearoa. They migrate for the winter and return to announce the new life of spring.

Ka tangi te wha­rau­roa, ko ngā kārere ā Mahuru.

If the shining cuckoo cries, it is the mes­sen­ger of spring.

Local and global mis­sions are a natural rhythm – each needs and feeds the other. We go and return like breath­ing in and out.

We began resourc­ing our Baptist children’s pro­grammes in late April 2024.

You could use this mate­r­ial however you like in your local church; for part of your Sunday pro­gramme, your whole pro­gramme, or an inter­gen­er­a­tional service – it’s up to you!

We will focus on one country for two con­sec­u­tive months. This time allows us to pray for spe­cific ‘live’ needs one month and give feed­back the fol­low­ing month.

For 2024, Whiria Kids will focus on:

• Tripura from late April
• Aotearoa, New Zealand, in June & July – includ­ing resources for Matariki
• Bangladesh in August & September
• Kolkata in October & November

Arotahi hopes to provide the fol­low­ing types of ele­ments for each people & place:

• 2 music videos for each loca­tion – one with local lan­guage content
• Prayer needs in the first month and prayer responses in month two
• Dif­fer­ent ways of praying
• Infor­ma­tion on people, place and culture
• Video of loca­tion and Arotahi’s work and workers (where secu­rity allows)
• A memory verse to learn
• Craft ideas – that rein­force learning
• Recipes to try
• Family learn­ing resources
• There will also be two projects you could be part of in 2024 – a coin trail for sup­port­ing student hostels in Bangladesh in August, & encour­age­ment to take part in Joyride later in the year — sup­port­ing kids in Kolkata.

Chil­dren can earn a unique badge each year for their involve­ment and com­mit­ment. Just let us know how many you need, and we’ll pop those in the post. It’s up to you how your tamariki earn these, but we suggest:

• Attend­ing a certain number of times per year
• Knowing the 4 Bible verses
• Con­tribut­ing to a global project in some way

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:8

How to sign your church up to the pro­gramme and access resources

Email hello@arotahi.org.nz to request access to the church resources section of the Whiria Kids website.

You can read more about the vision for the Whiria Kids pro­gramme and how it came about in this article: From Rope­hold­ers to Whiria Kids.

Image: Banner from the Whiria Kids website