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Published: March 19th 2010
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There was such a spirit of laughter and joy at Little Lights Children’s Home about a week into outreach. It was afternoon ministry so our whole team went to LLCH. We arrived at the home and waited for the children to return from school. Then we heard their voices. After we heard their voices, we saw their faces, faces that were becoming familiar to us with white-toothed smiles. The children became so excited when they saw our team! They said “Hello” to us very quickly then all scattered to their rooms to get changed out of their school uniforms into play clothes. Daisy, one of the women that works at LLCH came up to me and asked what we were planning on doing with the children that afternoon. “Are you going to just be playing games with them?” I then responded with “No, we actually have a children’s program planned for them!” She responded with a lit up face and a huge smile. She was so excited for what we had planned!
All of the children then started to stream out of the house with their after school snacks and promptly sat on the ground in a big circle. Jeeva,
another woman works at LLCH came out with a big tea kettle full of milk with a protein powder mixed in with it and poured it into the children’s mettle cups. Before the children started to chow down on their cookies, crackers, or chips, they said a prayer. One child would say and then all the other children would repeat it. It went something like this “Dear Lord, thank you for the snacks. Bless those who provide the snacks. In Jesus name, Amen.” Even with a simple prayer like that, they are so thankful for what they have, and it is just enough. It made me think about all of the food and things that I have and how blessed I am. But how often do I thank the Lord for everything that he has given me?
After they finished their snacks, we started the program, and my, did all of us have fun! What we started off with was a warm-up dance that was actually in Spanish but they loved it! They followed us in the actions and what to do, and I have never heard so much genuine laughter in my life! Some of the women even
joined us in the dance! After the “warm-up”, we did a funny lighthearted skit called “Fire in the House.” The women laughed more than the Children when we did this skit! What “Fire in the House” consists of is a director coming out and saying “Well ladies and gentlemen, we have an amazing play for you today! We have been practicing for the last 2 months and really perfected it, I think that you will really enjoy it!” There are 4 other characters that are in this skit as well, the kid (son or daughter), mother, father and the fireman. They say the following lines:
Kid: Mom, mom! There’s a fire in the house!
Mother: There’s a fire in the House!
Kid: There’s a fire in the house!
Mother: Ok, I will go tell your Father! (Mother then walks over to where father is sitting reading the paper)
Mother: Father, father! There’s a fire in the house!
Father: There’s a fire in the house!
Mother: There’s a fire in the house!
Father: Ok, I will go call the fire department. (Father then picks up the phone and calls the fire department)
Fireman: Hello, fire department.
Father: Hello, there’s a fire
in our house!
Fireman: There’s a fire in your house?
Father: There’s a fire in our house!
Fireman: Ok, I am on my way! (Fireman walks towards the house making a siren sound)
Those characters have 4 styles of acting that they do. First it is boring acting, the characters not really caring if they are doing a good job or not. Then the director comes out and says, “That was horrible! You need more emotion! Try it again.” So they try it again, this time with over exaggerated emotion, just imagine that! Once again, the director doesn’t think that it is good and says to do it again but more slowly. SO, they perform it slowly, slow motion type of slowly. That doesn’t sit with the director either and he or she says that it is to slow, of course and for them to do it faster! They of course take that literally and do it super speedy fast, like someone is fast-forwarding a tape or something! The director just gets so tired of they poor performance and then says “I QUIT!” and walks off. The characters then take over and ask-the-audience, in this case, the children of Little Lights, what kind of acting they would like the characters to do. They had us do the skit in chicken, elephant and monkey! It was so much fun! They really started to laugh when we did the elephant and monkey. That is when I realized that laugher is one of my favorite things to hear. It seems that when we laugh, some how deep down inside, the soul is being healed. After all that laughter we performed some more dramas for them then a craft. It was such a great afternoon of bonding in joy with these kids that we would be ministering to for the next 2 weeks.
After the program was finished, the children took baths then we help them start their English homework. So many of them are so diligent in their studying and it was so encouraging to see them really desire to learn.
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