Day Three: Church Experiences

This morning (although it will be yesterday by the time I post this) we went to the local church, Light of the Valley, for worship. George was to give the sermon, and the rest of the adults taught the various Sunday School groups. Justine had the youngest group, ages three to seven; Wendy had the middle group, ages eight to twelve; and Lauren had the teenagers. The rest of us helped out in the groups where we were needed. I was in the middle group with Darren, Lisa, and Jason. The lesson was about the Roman Centurion whose servant was dying, and who came to Jesus so that his servant may be healed. Jason demonstrated some military commands, and got the kids participating in standing at attention, about faces, and marching in place.

When Sunday school was over, we went back over to the main building for announcements. The main building of the church is just one room, with windows all around and two sets of double doors that always stay open to catch the cross-breeze. Wooden pews are set up on both sides of the sanctuary facing a small stage and lectern. There was one small drop-down projection screen, one projector, two microphones, and two speakers. The building seats about 150 people, and the compound also serves as a school.

After announcements, all the kids left and went to one of the surrounding Sunday school buildings for Junior church. Unfortunately, we were a little under-prepared, and junior church ended up being mostly mass chaos. We had a lot of trouble with crowd control, and had to physically break up a couple of fights. One of the kids found a dead bat and brought it in to the building, drawing delightedly terrified squeals from all of the other kids. The adults' ear-drums were completely shot after that...

Finally we got something like control over the room, and got the kids all playing Heads up Seven up.  At long last it was time for the kids to take the bus back home with their parents.

When we got back to Hosanna House, we got lunch on the table and had team devos after lunch clean-up. George gave us two passages of scripture to read about Moses being called by God to free the Israelites. We split up into about four groups, read the passages (Exodus 3:1-14 and 4:1-17) and discussed what God's call for Moses was, and what obstacles Moses had to work around. After about twenty minutes of discussion, we came back into a group to talk everything over together and relate the scriptures we read to our own lives.

Team devos finished, Andrew said he had a headache and didn't feel well, so he went down to his room to sleep while the rest of us went over plans for VBS. We'll have four stations set up around the Light of the Valley church compound: games, singing and Bible verse memorization, Bible lesson, and crafts. We'll also have a brief opening and closing. The adults who aren't helping with the stations are going to be crew leaders, with about fifteen kids per person. The numbers in attendance will vary from day to day, but we're expecting somewhere around two hundred kids from the community to come.

Because of the large numbers of kids coming, and because the kids are coming from all over the community, we're having a bus driver go up and down the highway picking kids up. The pastor of Light of the Valley was originally planning on doing the job for us, but since he's in the hospital, we've had to find a last minute replacement.

Later in the afternoon, some of us spent some time with the girls up at the house while two groups of us went on a walk to pass out flyers for VBS. The ones who went out ended up getting drenched in the classic, sudden and angry tropical deluge. I'm glad I was one of the people who stayed back to play with the babies!

There are three little ones at Hosanna House right now staying with their mothers: Debry (deh-BREYE), Kevin, and Carnilli (kar-NELL-ee). All of them are about a year old. The girls are very trusting of us with their children, often just handing them off to us when they need a break for a little while. We're always glad to hold them. :)

One-on-one interactions with the girls are still a little bit difficult, but they seem to be starting to warm up to the new-comers. Playing games with them and coming up with various activities to do is an easy way to break the ice. So far we've played countless games of Uno, Heads Up Seven Up, volley ball, and we've had one nail-painting party. I think for the most part the girls really enjoy the attention and interaction, but some are still very withdrawn.

After hanging out with the girls for a few hours, we came back to our quarters for dinner. Andrew was up, but said he still didn't feel very well. He didn't eat much, and went to bed as soon as possible while the rest of us went up to the house for devotions with the girls. When devos were over we played a few rounds of a name-learning game, and of course the classic Heads Up Seven Up. I didn't notice at the time, but I found out later that Jason left in the middle of the games. Apparently he was feeling sick to his stomach, and Connor was down with some kind of swelling in his face that seemed like an allergic reaction to something. As of right now (well, last night as it were) Jason said he's feeling better but needs to rest. Connor and Andrew are still sleeping, so we'll find out about them in the morning.
    (*quick side note: I'm writing these posts up at the end of every day and then posting them the next morning; all the guys are back to normal now.)

Tomorrow we start VBS with the girls from Hosanna House and the kids from the community. In the afternoon we'll probably spend more time just hanging out with the girls getting to know them, and playing volley ball. We might be working on some painting projects as well.