Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Mark 10:14 

This verse was once recited articulately by Timmy Kwark during a children’s memory verse presentation. Indeed children have been coming to Jesus via NHF Sunday School program, bringing forth many precious sights: four-year old Natalie Chun praying earnestly and at length in her pre-K class; the bright eyes of Rachel Ahn attentive to the lesson on the significance of Good Friday and Easter; fifth-grader Danny Yoon, who can often be found immersed in reading the Bible, initiating a discussion on the book of Revelation; and Nina Rathbun rushing into her Sunday School classroom with her enthusiastic question, “What are we doing today?”

What the teachers of NHF Sunday School are striving to do have been demonstrated, in part, by the above and other New Hope children –securely hiding the words of God in their hearts, communicating with God, sincerely understanding the gospel message, actively seeking the knowledge of the Bible, and having a fun time while doing them.

The fruition of these goals require commitment, dedication, and talent of teachers as well as the support of parents and the community, all of which have been blessings steadfastly provided by God to NHF.

The dedication of the 12 current teachers can be exemplified by the decision of the expectant-mother Mindy Suh to teach right until her first child is born this autumn and Sunny Kim, who while undergoing transitions in her family life, considers keeping her teaching schedule a priority and sometimes arrives from Manhattan holding her toddler son and a large Sunday School tote bag.  Alicea Wei takes time out from her rigorous medical school rotation requirements to maintain contact with her students and send prayer requests online, an appealing mode of communication for middle school students.

Such tapping into the interest of the children and effectively tailor designing lessons to suit a specific class is a notable quality of the NHF program and its gifted teachers. For her class of three girls, new teacher Hannah Kim fittingly planned a curriculum on Old Testament women supplemented with contemporary applications. Her Bible lessons are purposefully reinforced with exquisite craft activities such as the paper dolls of Eve donning leaf-stamped coverings. Another new teacher David Choi perceives that it is critical to solidly equip the high school students with spiritual armor before they go to college and is compiling study materials from Romans, C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, and others.

The parents who compose two thirds of the current set of teachers also take advantage of intimately knowing how children learn best and how to spark their curiosity as well as apply God’s teachings to hot topics in children’s lives. Direct involvement of parents in the Sunday School promotes continuation of Christian education at home.

Contributions from other members of the congregation add to the breadth and variety of the program. Julia An treasures projects made with another crafts specialist Nancy Laboy. Justin Wu’s drawings that accompanied his sermon on Christian friendship kept three-year old Daniel Zhu sitting focused. Soyeun Jung possesses the finesse to simultaneously place one hand on her head and the other on her ear, lift one leg, stick out her tongue and sing “Father Abraham had many sons…”; joyfully she can inspire the children to do the same and praise the Lord.

All these blessings from God came together once again on September 7, when new Sunday School year commenced for the twenty students of NHF with a children’s worship service.  Clad in NHF shirt, Sophie Song led the praise time. Student participants included Mark Nechols (prayer) and little volunteers Alex Chang and Sarah Hwang, who took turns wearing a genuine West Point cadet hat and marched to words of Proverbs 13:20 (He who walks with the wise grows wise.)  After Jay Lee shared highlights from his summer medical mission trip and encouraged the children to spread the name of Jesus to people far and near, the service concluded festively with presentation of gifts and certificates imprinted with God’s loving exhortation,