Jen Wright is the children’s ministry coordinator at Stromlo Christian Church in Canberra. The Wrights lost their home in the Canberra firestorm in 2003.

We need to tell Jesus!

Harrison was three-years-old when we got in the car and left our home behind.

With his Dad and Grandpa preparing the house before the fire front arrived, and me focussed on getting the rest of my extended family to safety, everybody was doing something.

Harrison responded to the burning sky and panicked adults with the one thing he knew he could do: pray.

I didn’t stop and pray. We needed to get away. But we also desperately needed to pray. So, we prayed as I drove.

It took the faith and words of my scared little boy to remind me that in all the things to do in a crisis, praying needs to be right up there.

The fire

The 2003 Canberra firestorm took the entire city by surprise. We held our two-year-old’s birthday party at our home in the morning; had a family lunch in the middle of the day; and were homeless by mid-afternoon.

My parents were staying with us, as was my sister with her toddler and a 7-week-old baby. Without warning and in the space of a few hours, nearly 500 homes were destroyed and four people died.

Seventeen years later, as I watch fire devastate communities once again, my heart goes out to all affected.

What it feels like

As a children’s minister, I am particularly concerned about how we support children at this time, whether they have lost their homes, watched their community suffer, or simply overheard the awful news reports about what is happening.

But first, it’s helpful to think through what it means for a child to be affected by an experience like a bushfire.

Simply overhearing adults talking about a fire plan, or having prayers in church about the devastation, can cause a child to be anxious or concerned—let alone those who were evacuated or lost their home.

The hardest part

You might think losing everything we owned would be tough, or trying to help young kids through a traumatic experience would be the worst. But the hardest part for me was having nowhere to go when we left the house.

I had the responsibility of getting my children, my sister, my mum and my very young nephews to safety. They were relying on me to take them somewhere away from danger. But there was no evacuation order, or sense of where to go, no official guidance or help.

These feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are real and powerful and have stuck with me in some sense over the past 17 years and yet may easily be an overlooked hurt for many, including children.

Never assume you know what a child is feeling. Listen to kids share their thoughts and difficulties. And I mean really listen, not just wait for the chance to offer up platitudes.

The only thing that can’t be taken away

In the days after the firestorm, I heard many very unhelpful platitudes. People said things like, “At least you’re all safe”. All I could think was, ‘What about those who didn’t stay safe? What platitude do you give those families?’

The unhelpful remarks helped me see the only thing that couldn’t be taken from me on the day of the fire was Jesus. When all else was lost, I couldn’t lose Jesus. This was a truth that gave me comfort and clarity in my grief and shock.

“A time to weep” (Ecclesiastes 3:4)

When our little boy was sad that his Baby [toy doll] was left behind, he was really upset. Well-meaning family told him we’d go shopping and buy another baby. This suggestion didn’t provide him with any comfort.

When I eventually explained that Baby had been in the house when it burnt down, our boy wept. I held his sobbing body as he cried for Baby. After a while, he wiped his eyes and asked if we could buy a new Baby.

In the Book of Psalms, we witness someone dealing with great darkness, sharing intimately their powerful emotional expression. God gives us emotions to help us express what is going on in our minds.

We needn’t be scared or worried about strong emotions in kids, but rather find ways to help children express them in helpful ways.

Sit with kids in their grief. Don’t mistake sadness for lack of trust or hope. Don’t be scared by a child’s sorrow; be ready to walk with them towards the peace that comes from mourning with hope.

Helping kids trust Jesus

There’s a lot of great advice out there for how to help kids deal with a trauma like a bushfire: advice to really listen; limit exposure to news reports; help them take action; keep routines as normal as possible. But how do we help children process what’s happening in a way that deepens their trust in Jesus?

Prepare your homes

Preparing for suffering isn’t the glamorous side of kids’ ministry. It’s not fun and it isn’t accompanied by actions. But it is vital and should be a part of our teaching and discipling.

I don’t credit Harrison’s prayer in our moment of crisis to anything my husband or I taught him but to God using songs from the Colin Buchanan albums we played frequently.

When the rubber hit the road, it wasn’t what we did in that moment, but what our kids had learnt up to that point that counted.

Songs like Sovereign Over Us by Aaron Keyes remind us of God’s presence and place in our broken world and reinforce a biblical theology of suffering for us all, helping us to be ready when it comes.

Question time

Kids asking us questions can be scary. When little people are dealing with trauma it can be even harder to find an answer. Let the questions come.

Stay calm as they ask whether God exists or if God really loves the people who lost their homes. How you respond to their questions will affect whether they keep asking them. Keep reminding them of God’s character, both in the questions you can answer, and especially those you can’t. Hearing a child’s questions about a situation or about God will help you know what they are thinking—it’s another part of listening.

When we did a series at church asking God the big questions, a large part of our kids’ program was spent discovering and reminding ourselves who God is. We looked at passages that show us God’s love, sovereignty, comfort and peace. When dealing with the question of suffering, we watched the lyric video of Mercy Me’s Even If, and talked through the fact that God is still God and worthy of praise even if he chooses not to give us what we ask for.

Out of control

The world is telling our children that climate change is the biggest threat to human life ever known and that these fires are proof that we are heading to human-led extinction. We need to be ready with a theologically sound response to this crisis, recognising that God is in control over every fire and every life.

We can share the wonder of God creating this world and tasking people to care for it. We can lament that we aren’t doing a great job of looking after the earth. We can look to the hope of the new heaven and the new earth because we trust Jesus. We can share the gospel message about a God in full control who chooses to save his people and give them an incredible future. Speak loudly, clearly and confidently despite the voices in this world that seek to scare our children into action over a worldly problem.

Today is about saving lives

Priorities become clear when you can’t have everything.

Effective kids’ ministry is not about morals or behaviour, having the most likeable or successful child. It’s about life and death. It’s about heaven and hell. Remembering this as we prepare our lessons each week, as we share over the dinner table, as we talk to our kids during a crisis will affect what we focus on and what we pray for.

Turn up the volume

Choose the voices the kids hear:

Turn down the radio and turn up the quality Christian music that shouts deep truths into their souls. Find music that soothes. Play songs that specifically speak into suffering. Sing along to songs about God’s character.
Read the Bible with them.
Pray with them. Let them see you pray and read the Bible for yourself.
Share your own feelings and questions and ultimate trust in God.
If a child in your ministry has lost their home, buy them a new Bible and write in the inside cover some verses about God they can hold on to.
Give cards from other kids in your ministry.
Match them up with a Jesus-loving teenager to be a mentor and support, someone who can keep listening to them, praying with them and giving them focussed time.

Contrary to other voices out there, we know our children live in this broken world that is affected by the greatest threat to life ever seen—sin. Our children cannot always be protected from the impact of the yuck in this world. But they can be equipped to deal with it by the God who is sovereign as He works through every situation for our good.

It may be fire or flood, cancer or a car crash, disease or death. It will come. Our job is not to desire nothing bad ever happens to our kids but to desire that in everything, they will trust God in life and death:

Be strong and courageous
The Lord of the Ages
Holds all His little ones safe
Do not fear the fire
(Do not fear the fire)
Do not fear the waters
(Do not fear the waters)
Do not fear the thunder
(Do not fear the thunder)
Jesus has conquered them all

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How to help kids trust Jesus in a crisis