Guatemala Travelogue 3
I deliberately didn’t set out to roll out, “Day 1, Day 2, etc” because, well…Eva. I’m just owning it, and y’all should too. Hence, the simple numbering of these entries! Whew…I’m sure that was keeping you up at night. So we find our American pals heading into the second VBS/kids’ program on Wednesday afternoon. The team had been solidly working on the dining hall painting project since Monday, including all Wednesday morning. Bodies were tired, and endurance seemed frayed. But still, the team was really looking forward to another exciting time with the kids.
We gathered near the main house and set up in a small alcove. This particular gathering was for the children of the SETECA staff and students. Once again, we had a pretty small number at “go time,” but ended with 23, along with many of their parents! Once again, all I can say is…pure joy. The kids and parents were ALL smiles…ALL excitement…ALL iphone video-making. Yea…probably best if those never see the light of day, but whatever man. :) Case in point was Eva realizing AS I was starting the first song, with spinning and jumping, that I’d failed to change from my slides to tennis shoes! During the 1st spin, I sent my shoes flying. Thankfully, no children were harmed in the flinging of said shoes…and they got a big kick out of it…so basically, I meant to do that.
There are a few things that made this gathering unique! Firstly, we realized that many of the kids actually spoke some English. There were many times they reacted to Scott’s words before Daniel translated them! Even during the wordless book section of the lesson, they were shouting out the colors in English. It was so precious. That might sound so simplistic, but it was meaningful to us because of how excited it made them to engage with us in that way! Secondly, their parents are either currently in ministry or studying to be in ministry…so they were especially thrilled to have us do the program with their children. Thirdly…to be clear, we had no favorites…OBVS…but also…yea, the opposite might also be true. I’ll never name names though…so we’ll just let the kids decide if they fit the bill. Also, don’t call the VBS police. You all know you’ve had your faves too so don’t come at me. But these children were legit just super cool kids in general.
We were truly bummed when it came time to stop the program. Later that night, the kids living on campus kept sneaking over to the brick house later that night…tapping on the windows and giggling. That did not make us the least bit sad…duh. I’ll take Heart Melt for $1,000,000, Alex.
Incidentally, I should mention that there was all sorts of commotion and conversation that morning at 7:00am devos about the Mother’s Day fireworks that started going off very early. Apparently, the kind of “wake and shake the neighborhood” kinda fireworks. Yea…guess that should read “wake and shake MOST of the neighborhood”! Get yourself a sound machine. You’re welcome.