This friday I was asked to speak at Riga 1 Play scheme, a one week daycamp for the children connected to the church and Patvarums. Every day of the week they had been watching a part of the Narnia movie and talking about it, I was asked to talk about the armor of God From Eph 6:12-17 after watching the final battle scenes of the Narnia movie. So I talked about the helmet of salvation, the brestplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the sandals of preparation and the shield of faith. But most importantly the sword of the spirit. Armor you can wear with little or no training a sword however requires hard work and training. So I showed the Segna and spoke about the four virtues and their corresponding animals in [[Fiore Dei Liberi]]s [[Flos Duellatorum]]
You can grab the sermon notes here. And the presentation.
After that I led a fencing seminar. And we did broomstick wrestling forthe elephant, stepping drills for the tyger, thrust/parry/riposte for the lynx and finally we had the test of courage. Everybody had to kneel in a circle and as the test of the heart the kids had to stand up, enter the circle, state their name loudly, look everyone in the eye and hold a speech (that is say a few words about whetever was on their heart.). Everyone kneeling had to be silent and show respect (listen) to the one speaking.
For some of you (all the evangelists) this might seem an easy enough test. But as Seinfelt pointed out, public speaking is the number one fear, death is only on third place, wich means most people would rather be in the coffin than holding the eulogy at the funeral.
We had a solemn moment where, maybe for the first time, some of these kids where actually listened to and shown respect by their peers. Some of them passed the test more easily but all of them got up and braved the test in the end. I have to say that this was by far the best moment of the day!
