Baby Shower

This morning we had our last day of VBS at Light of the Valley Church. I heard that the total number of kids had increased to seventy, and my personal group that I lead had doubled since yesterday. It's an interesting challenge keeping track of nearly twenty 9-10 year olds! Everyone was well behaved, which made it a little easier. During our days at VBS, the group leaders were supposed to pick two kids from their group each day who they thought were the most well-behaved and most engaged. The names we chose went into a hat for the closing ceremony today, where the kids' names were called to come up and receive a prize. We had some soccer balls to give out, along with some other smaller prizes, but of course the soccer balls were the most exciting for the kids.

In the afternoon, our team spent some time working on landscaping around the Hosanna House compound. A group of us went down to the river to gather some small stones to put down on top of the ground cloth around the bushes outside the house. Darren continued to work on maintenance projects in the house as well. The rest of us played volleyball and threw water balloons around with the girls. Some of us also helped prepare for a surprise baby shower that we were holding for one of the girls later in the evening.

For dinner tonight we had lasagna and brownies up at the house with the girls. As soon as dinner was over we cleared everything as quickly as we could and had a short devotional. Then we started setting up for the surprise baby shower. The girl we were holding it for went with Miss Estelyn down the road to her house while we decorated and set up. When she came back about a half-hour later, I think she was pleasantly surprised. We played some typical baby shower games, and had a little "reveal" of the gender of her baby. It's a boy! She's due in about a month. Pray that she finds the support she needs in motherhood, this young girl is going to have a tough road ahead. She's about thirteen years old.

Tomorrow the team has plans to take a trip out to an island just off the coast for a bit of a vacation. Then Friday we plan to spend a good part of the day packing, and then we leave on Saturday. This trip has really flown by.