Power Outage

VBS started today! I'm sure I've mentioned before that we're hosting a soccer-themed VBS for the kids of Valley Community. We had a pretty small group today; only about thirty kids in total, roughly six in each group. Everything went really well, all the kids were well behaved, and the rain held off until we were all done for the day. I'm anticipating a much larger number of kids tomorrow, since many of them will bring friends back. Another positive for the day: the bus that picks up the kids didn't have to be towed out of the barn like last year. Praise God for that!

We got back to Hosanna House just in time to get lunch ready and have team devos. We discussed what projects we wanted to try to get done this week before we left. Most of it involved painting the wall that encompasses the compound, but Darren took a tour through the house with Paul to decide what other projects we can work on. They ended up with quite an extensive list. We'll see how much of it we can get through by the end of the week.

It was a pretty relaxed afternoon, most everyone was up at the house hanging out with the girls. A few stayed back in the team quarters to rest for a bit. It rained on and off all afternoon, so we weren't able to get started painting like we had originally planned. But it was a nice afternoon to just hang out with the girls.

In the evening we had devotions and activities with the girls as usual. We continued The Comeback series, this time talking about God's grace and mercy through the story of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus. The message that we wanted the girls to take away was that you're never too far gone for God to save you. There's nothing you can do that will make God say "No, you're not worth my time." I think for those of us who have been raised in a Christian environment it's easy to forget that God doesn't look at our pile of good deeds and our pile of bad deeds before he lets us into heaven. He just looks for the mark of Jesus.

After devos we went back to the team quarters where Sarah and Jordan decided to have a burping contest. I guess you can call that team bonding, haha. On the way back down, some of us were looking at the stars, and I think we saw Mars. At the very least it was a very bright, beautiful star. You can see them so much better from down here, without all the light pollution. Now there's even less light pollution, since the power went out in the whole compound. Hopefully it comes back before morning. Ah, well. Life is an adventure here!