On March 24, an inclusive lesson was held for our Parish Sunday School on the topic: “All-all-all who are on this earth, we really need big and small!“.
The lesson was for everyone, children and adults. Father Oleksii Holchuk, together with Mrs. Marina Gavrilchuk, held an event in which they talked about the “Children of the Sun” – people with Down syndrome. After all, on March 21, the whole world celebrates people with Down Syndrome.
We talked about what our attitude should be to people who are a little different from us. The lesson was educational and had active games. All those who took part received small gifts.
Thanks to everyone present, kids and their parents! At the same time, our event was devoted to a good cause – all participants made donations to help for the treatment of Sofiyka Tomchuk, the daughter of ATO participant. This family is large. Sofiika is the fourth child, and she was born with Down syndrome. At the moment the child is in the intensive care unit after suffering concomitant diseases.
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Glory to Jesus Christ. Dear children and parents. Today we have an unusual theme of the lesson, but it is devoted to the image and likeness of God.
Man is an image and likeness of God.
When God created the world, every other day He created something new. For example, water on the second day and the heavenly bodies (moon, dawn, sun) on the 4th day.
God created man on the 6th and on the seventh day, God rested.
When God created man, he gave it a perfect, healthy body, soul and spirit.
It took some time for God to create Adam and Eve. They lived in a beautiful place, talked with God, but broke His one commandment “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” and because of that, they lost their close connection with the Creator. After they were forced to leave paradise for disobedience before God, the human body became ill, and it ceased to be perfect. Our body has become fallible. Because our body is a perfect computer, it could treat itself and fight disease itself. Since Adam and Eve are our common ancestors, grandfathers and grandmothers, we all inherited the corruption of sin.
Therefore, people become ill, they need to be treated, and operated on. And there are people who were born a little differently. When a baby is born in her mother’s tummy, sometimes the baby’s body takes on mistakes from the very beginning. And as a result, the baby is born not like most other babies. These children are not sick, they do not all need treatment, they need help, love, maybe some additional conditions. For example, there are children in wheelchairs, there are kids for whom it is difficult to walk, but they walk. And there are other kids who are called children of the sun.
Each of us receives from God all the same, but at the same time, different. We are all born with legs, hands, head, but different eye color, leg size and height. There are also different characters with us, our tastes and preferences.
Today, we will devote our lessons to special children, which in the world are called, sunny. These kids are born at first glance quite ordinary. But they have their own peculiarity, they all have similarities in appearance when they grow up, like close brothers and sisters. But they also have similarities with their parents and relatives. Their body also has differences that doctors and parents know about, but they are not always noticeable to other people.
What then is the feature of those that are ordinary, but not totally, kids?
The organism of these children, when developed is one small error, not visible to the human eye. I’ll tell you about it now.
You probably all know that each of us has organs in the middle. What do you know? This is a heart, a stomach, an ear. And there is still a lot of super small particles from which our body forms.
There is an error in this one particle. And this particle is called a chromosome. What a difficult name!
And these little chromosome must live in our body. That is, they live in pairs of two. But these couples in these children make 47 instead of 46 pairs of chromosomes.
What are they like to you? Take a good look at the image. They are similar to socks. Do you see similarities? Like two socks in different directions. And in one such pair of socks there is a error, one sock lost his girlfriend and 21-pairs of chromosomes joined the third friend.
When such an error is made when the baby is still growing inside its mother, the baby-chromosome is added to the third in 21 pairs, then the baby develops and grows a little differently.
That is why on the 21st day of the third month, that is March 21, the world celebrates the children of the sun. And in scientific terms this feature is called in honor of the doctor who studied these different people. The name of this English doctor was John Langdon Down. Therefore, the phenomenon when a person has an extra chromosomal pair began to be called after the name of the doctor – Down syndrome.
It should be noted that these people are not sick, they are not contagious, they do not need to treat this particular feature because it is not treatable. But these people have special needs. Their body works a bit slower. It is harder for them and they have to take more time to learn things. Children with this syndrome begin to talk later in life, in addition to writing, and sometimes even begin to speak later. But these children have one common feature – they are positive, they have common features of the face. They have similar eyes and face shapes.
But with such features, people with Down syndrome study at school, become athletes and even models. The people of the sun perform especially well at detailed work that requires attention and concentration.
Our task is to understand that these people, as well as we, have feelings, know how to be friends and love, and we must show them our love, and need to help children or elderly people with Down syndrome.
Our attitude towards such people shows us how we are Christians. Do we know how to love, whether we are careful or respectful.. We all are equal before God, are the same or different. Most likely, God sends such sunny people to the earth in order to bring in this world more love, to teach us to love, to learn from them sincerity. After all, people with Down syndrome, adults or children, always remain “children” in the perception of the world. But Christ said: “Be as children, for such is the kingdom of heaven.”
It should be noted that about one child out of 700 is born with Down syndrome. And scientists have researched that the birth of people with 47 chromosomes does not depend on any circumstances: whether the family is poor, rich or healthy, of sick parents, from certain nationalities or does the place of residence depend on it. This does not happen depending on some circumstances.
And the sign of the fact that we remember about a good attitude towards such children, that we count them the same as ourselves, we will spend an active part of our lesson.
All over the world, on March 21, the day of colored rolled socks was celebrated. But, as we said a little earlier, in the body of these children, there is one rotated, not correctly composed pair of chromosomes, which look similar to socks. On this day, wear colored socks, gloves, ties, or other symbols to feel like others to understand how to attract attention of outsiders. This is another manifestation of tolerance, which is very necessary for our society.
Therefore, we have prepared some active tasks with the symbols of our today’s classroom – various socks, to maintain a friendly atmosphere. After all, the amount of chromosomes is not important or friendships.
The first block of tasks on the attentiveness of the question-answer. On what day did God create man? (Day 6)
- The first block of tasks on the attentiveness of the question-answer. On what day did God create man? (Day 6)
- What are the names of the particles of our organism in which the failure occurs and babies are born alike with each other? (chromosome)
- How many pairs of chromosomes do people usually have? (21)
- What are the names of people with Down syndrome? (“The People of the Sun”)
- In which pair of chromosomes of the People of the Sun is there a malfunction? (21)
- And the most difficult question, what is the full name of the doctor who was the first to study “sunny people” (John Langdon Down)?
- In what number are the Day of the People of the Sun marked? (March 21)
Following is our task:
Kids are divided into teams and to speedily make socks into pairs. (We collected cut socks on the table)
The next task of our two teams is to speedily say today’s phrase “Lots of socks”.
And now the task for the smallest, it is possible to take part with the help of a mother or father. Here our mothers tore our socks. And every mom knows that they are constantly lost. We have to help mom to hang our little socks into pairs.
