For children summer is time for holidays, sunshine, family and friends. Summertime creates fond memories of fun, friendships and new experiences that teach them about life and themselves, memories that stay with our children through their adult years.

If parents in Israel are lucky, they can get a few days off work to spend with the kids during the summer. For the hard-working moms and dads summer is more about driving the kids from one activity to another, camps, shopping… and … expensive!

During the 35 years I served a Messianic Jewish community here in Israel, I could see how important it is to provide opportunity for parents to be with their children, and we often used our weekly congregational gatherings to do just that. For too many of us, this was the only opportunity parents and kids had time to be together, and I couldn’t think of any better way to celebrate the Shabbat together than with our families.

Here are a few activities you might want try with your family, church or congregation. Great for grandparents, too!

We talked...

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