Day 9 - wrapping up

Dear Friends and Family,

This morning Pastor Mike, Leah, Jordan, Paul, Elijah, Woody, and Patrick got up at 5:30am to see the sunrise. The way Pastor Mike described the sun beams breaking through the clouds over the Africa landscape was magnificent and another reminder of God's splendor.

Christabel said that today was the most tiring day. They did VBS from 9am - 4 pm. They were all pretty tired on their way to the site and most of them fell asleep in the bus on the way over. When they arrived they prayed for alertness and that God would give them an extra measure of strength. The VBS they did for the kids under 8 was a mixture of Compassion sponsored students and kids from the neighborhood. The VBS for the 12-15 year olds was a different feel, they were really encouraging them to see this time as something that they can learn to teach the younger students.
The team unity is wonderful and even at the end of the trip everyone is taking ownership and really following through on their responsibilities.

Pastor Mike's team had a harder time in the morning with their VBS do to some translation issues, but they managed to get everything worked out and things went smoothly from then on. They had lunch with some of the church members and elder and then went back for their second VBS group. Before they started the 2nd VBS, Leah noticed 3 young men speaking to one another in American Sign Language and she was able to have a 5-10 minute conversation with them solely using sign. What a God appointment that was!
They played red light-green light during their VBS and used it as a way to illustrate times when God tells us to go forward and when He tells us to stop.
It rained quite a bit in the evening and the team was able to spend some good time together in debrief.

Tomorrow they will go to church in the morning, have lunch with the church staff, do some shopping and get ready to travel home.

Blessings, Heather