VBS in the DR

Today we went to a betay for VBS. It definitely not what we expected. To say it was wild and chaotic doesn't really cover it, but we adapted and it turned out really good. A couple of the older boys from the orphanage came with us to help explain the games and activities. It was great seeing them step into leadership positions. They will be helping us all week, which is a first for them. The kids seemed to live every moment of it. From singing the songs to the makeshift english bingo we created to playing freeze tag. As we left a lot of then walked us to our bus. We are all looking forward to going back in the morning. See the attached pictures of the VBS at the betay.

When we first arrived at the betay we began gathering the kids. Two of the little boys grabbed Coates' hand and then one reached for Coates to pick him up. So Coates picks him up and it was about this point that Coates realizes what the rest of us already knew - the boy had a shirt on but was completely naked from the waist down. Coates: "No, no, no, no..." and he sets the boy back on the ground and says, "Let's just hold hands." By this point we are all losing it. Later today when we were talking about it Coates said, "Lance, I felt like I done something wrong!" I was crying I was laughing so hard.

This afternoon we were working with the boys at the orphanage. That didn't go as planned, but again we adapted. We did manage to teach some of the creation story to them. As we were going out to work in the field with the boys we thought we were going to get a really bad storm but it passed.

We have a projector so tonight we had a movie night with the boys. We watched Shrek in Spanish (with English subtitles). About 10 minutes in Coates gets up and comes back to where I'm sitting and says, "I can't understand it!"

Around 9 each night we walk over to the church here on the grounds and have devotions with all the volunteers. The light wasn't working tonight and while they were trying to get that figured out someone with a flashlight pointed out a nice sized spider on the floor about to crawl under Libby's feet. She turned into stretch Armstrong and had her feet behind her head. I thought she was going to do a back flip out of the chair. Then I turned around to find Katherine standing on the tallest thing she could find. And she has spent the rest of the night combing the ground in front of her with a flashlight looking for spiders.

Donna has entertained us during down time today with her best Annette Coates voice. She is keeping Matthew in line.

Its been hot during the day but not too humid. Tonight it got pretty cool. During the movie most of our group put on long sleeves.

Tomorrows schedule should look a lot like today's. Hopefully knowing a little more what to expect will help tomorrow to be even better than today.

-Lance

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