So much to write, so little time!

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This is Lesley posting our next update. Honestly, I don't know where to start; there's so much to share in the few days we've been here. Pastor Ely keeps us busy which we like. Thursday, we visited a VBS at one of the satellite churches Brother Richard pastors. Lots of kids from the area attended. One of my favorite parts was listening to their songs. The song I can't wait to teach my kids is "Do you know about Jesus" and it's sung to the tune of "Take me out to the ballgame." I have a video of it that I will try to post, but it might be too large. I was asked to teach grades 4-6 which I thought meant helping one of the teachers. However, Brother Orlando took me up in front of the group and said "go ahead." Bewildered as to what to do, I asked what I should speak on and he said the Easter story. Between being nervous and sadly not reading the Easter story recently, I spoke for about 10 minutes and later realized I had not gotten some of the details correct- I really screwed up the timeline. I was ashamed of myself and quite embarrassed when I realized it. But the main point I tried to get across was loving our enemies; how Christ still loved those that beat him and even while hanging on the cross He prayed "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Hopefully, the kids took something positive away from my less than stellar presentation. The rest of the time, Pastor Bishop, Lenny, Bob and I worked on balloon animals to pass out to the kids. Actually, Bob and I just watched Lenny and Pastor Bishop as we spent 10 minutes trying to blow up one of those balloons to the point of passing out. I have a great video of Lenny blowing up his first balloon animal. I tried to help out in some way by writing John 3:16 on the balloons, but only got it written on like 4 before the kids came out. And, boy! did those kids love the balloons. Poor Pastor Bishop's lungs were about to explode with all the balloons he had to blow up. He and Lenny showed Orlando and Charlie how to blow them up and make dogs so we were able to churn those puppies out. Sister Modelyn got pretty good at forming the balloons into dogs, but was frustrated not to be able to blow one up. During that time, Dad went with Pastor Ely & Modelyn to take their son, Caleb, to the hospital because he was dehydrated and had passed out earlier that morning. Later that afternoon, we visited backyard Bible clubs where the group from Solid Rock Baptist Church (SRBC) taught about Jesus, sang songs, and fed the children. Dad got really into one of the songs with the kids and it was hilarious to watch. You had to put your thumbs up, elbows up, knees in, head to the side, eyes up, tongue out and turn around while singing. The kids were wonderful! I wanted to hug them all and hold all the babies, but probably not appropriate for a stranger to walk up to a kid and just hug them. But lots of smiles and waves hello communicated quite a bit.

I wish I could write more, but it's 10:30pm Saturday night and I'm sitting outside with the mosquitoes because I can't get a signal in my room. Hope to update again later!

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Comments

[Melanie Snow]

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. I look forward to each one.